12 Girl Scout Cookies, Ranked Worst To Best

The period from January to April is one of the best times of the year: Girl Scout cookie season. Whenever I make my biweekly weekend trip to Walmart during that period, I am greeted at the door by very small, very adorable children, peddling their wares — often with homemade signs. My heart says, "Sara! The children! Think of the children!" as I eye the box of Samoas sitting on the troop's table. Sometimes  I'll even start to feel like a "regular," which is usually when I try to put my hood up and shuffle inside without making eye contact with any of the Scouts — only to be sucked into buying another box on my way out. 

As you can probably guess, I've eaten my fair share of Girl Scout cookies over the years and have some very, very strong opinions about which ones are the tastiest. That's exactly why I decided to taste all of the current offerings and rank them from worst to best, based on their overall flavor and consistency. Rest assured that even if we don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to cookie flavors, I'm sure we can all agree that it's a fantastic cause that's worth every bite.

Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer/distributor/etc.

When you think of Girl Scout cookies, the last thing that probably comes to mind is something as plain-Jane as a standard "chip" cookie. But these gluten-free caramel chocolate chip cookies are on offer — and have the potential to woo folks in the market for something more basic, or those avoiding gluten. 

I will start by saying this: These aren't the worst chocolate chip cookies I've ever had, nor are they the worst gluten-free cookies I've ever had. So, I'll take that as a win right off the bat. They're not as mealy as could be, but as their appearance suggests, they are quite dusty — kind of like the vending machine cookies I remember getting as a kid. The caramel and chocolate flavors are both lacking, and eating one of these cookies felt like biting into straight rice flour. They aren't very sweet, nor are they conceptually novel. I wouldn't buy these, even if I were eating gluten-free, because the flavor is so boring and underwhelming.

I could have sworn these Lemonades were gluten-free, based on how they crumbled. I had to dig through the pack to find ones that weren't smashed to smithereens, which I quickly learned was not the shipping company's fault but due to the cookie's brittle texture. I'd recommend eating them at your own risk — and over the sink.

By this point in the ranking (I tried the Lemonades towards the end), I realized that the Girl Scouts' bakeries are really awful at whatever they classify as "shortbread." Like, to the point where they shouldn't even try. These cookies were more like Trefoils than true shortbread, as they traded buttery richness for sweetness. The lemon flavor wasn't fresh, though I was glad it didn't eclipse the cookie's overall flavor.

These cookies are also conceptually odd. I was puzzled about where the advertised icing was, but quickly realized it was (non-stamped) on the cookie. When I scraped some off with my teeth, I found it to be sweet and lemony, but nothing to write home about. I'm not opposed to ranking an unconventional, niche flavor like lemon high (as I did with Tate's Bake Shop's riff on the lemon cookie), but the execution needs to improve for it to climb off the bottom of my list.

Girl Scouts offers not one but two gluten-free cookie varieties. While I won't say I really liked the gluten-free Toffee-tastic cookies, which are supposed to be crunchy, buttery cookies studded with toffee pieces, I will say their flavor was a little better executed than the gluten-free caramel chocolate chip ones.

When I pulled them from the bag, I knew they were going to be shortbread-adjacent. They were both buttery and toffee-flavored, though most of the caramel-ish undertone seemed to come from the base of the cookie rather than the toffee pieces inside. It tasted like toffee candy (meaning way too sweet), making it true to the label, but the eating experience wasn't really fun. The outside of the cookie was crispy and shortbread-like, but the inside was completely powdery. One bite and I had to run to the sink to brush crumbs off my sweater. It's not an awful cookie, and if shortbread is your go-to, you may not find these cookies as mediocre as I did.

I purposefully tried to avoid reading reviews about Exploremores — the newest addition to the Girl Scout cookie lineup — because I didn't want to be biased going into my experience. And this cookie is certainly a tall order: the Rocky Road-inspired cookie pairs a chocolate wafer base with a sandwich créme filling, that's supposed to be toasted almond and marshmallow-adjacent. The key phrase? Supposed to.

Rocky Road isn't on anyone's list of the best ice cream flavors, so I don't entirely know why Girl Scouts would make it the muse for this cookie. The chocolate cookies themselves are excellent — less crunchy than Oreos or other knockoff sandwich cookie brands I've tried, with a more robust and authentic chocolate flavor. The créme, though, is where everything hits the fan. I tried it both with the cookies and by scraping it off with my teeth, but couldn't detect any almond or marshmallow flavor. Marshmallow is a tricky flavor to master (read: a pipe dream) without becoming a general "vanilla," but the toasted almond should have been a little easier to figure out. In a perfect world, it should have as much weight on the flavor as the chocolate cookie did. I certainly didn't get "Rocky Road" from it, either.

Trefoils are what I would consider to be a safe cookie. I don't know of anyone who would buy these basic, shortbread-inspired cookies, seeing as their flavor is just that: shortbread — and it's not even a good shortbread at that. It's a hard type of cookie to do well, to be fair, as there needs to be just the right amount of snap, sweetness, and butteriness. These had the snap, and they sure had the sweetness, but the butteriness is just a little too underdeveloped to call them a true shortbread. "Stale sugar cookie" would be a better name, though I doubt it would help the little Brownies sell more boxes of them. Regardless, these cookies don't have anything else wrong with them besides their poor shortbread-ness because they don't bring anything else to the table in terms of novelty, flavor, or fun.

That being said, I think there are some perks of having a basic, crunchy sugar cookie in the lineup. You can do a ton of things with these cookies, like pairing them with cheese or a cocktail, or crumbling them up on a dessert as a crunchy topping of sorts. But why (and if) anyone would go to town on a sleeve of them is another question entirely.

Peanut butter-anything hates to see me coming. I love chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and some of my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavors make use of this iconic combination. But I didn't really have a soft spot for these peanut butter cookies.

Despite having peanut butter in their name and offering a tiny morsel on top of the cookies, the nutty flavor was otherwise absent. Unlike its Little Brownie Bakers competition, Tagalongs, the Peanut Butter Patties didn't put peanut butter at the forefront. Instead, it seemingly increased the ratio of cookies and chocolate (which needed to be done ... but more on that later) to the point where the peanut essence was a distant memory. Sure, the cookie was good (but you can't really screw up a basic sugar cookie, right?), and the chocolate was more waxy than it was flavorful, but without the peanut butter, why would anyone want to eat them?

While I can appreciate that the chocolate coating on these cookies was more uniform and visually appealing than the Tagalongs, it doesn't matter what it looks like if what's inside is average at best. These cookies were nothing to write home about, and if I'm spending over $5 on a box, I want it to be like cookie nirvana.

Do-si-dos are another cookie that I would categorize as being "safe." However, there were some fundamental issues with these cookies that kept them from the top spot. The oatmeal sandwich cookie is filled with a peanut butter filling that's more gritty than it is creamy. For one, that crunchy and almost mealy cookie isn't a good match for an equally gritty peanut butter filling. It's kind of like eating sand — peanut-flavored sand, that is. While the cookies were not as good as the Exploremores, I had to rank these Do-si-Dos higher because their filling was leaps and bounds above the Rocky Road-inspired treat. Unlike the Exploremores, you could eat these and say, "Yep, that's a peanut butter cookie filling, alright."

If I were in charge of making these cookies, I would have swapped out that mealy-yet-crunchy oatmeal cookie with a plain shortbread — or heck, even the cookie base on the Exploremores. The chocolate cookie would do really well with the peanut butter, which I would have also made smooth rather than gritty. The Do-si-dos are better conceptualized than the lower-ranked cookies on my list, though they have a serious case of "has potential, but needs direction."

How telling was it that the Lemon-ups I pulled from this carton were stamped with "I'm a risk taker!" Certainly, offering yet another lemon cookie when the other one was, frankly, a dumpster fire, is bold — but the move would ultimately pay off well for Little Brownie Bakers. It's also probably risky of me to rank such a divisive flavor so high on this list, but ultimately, I think that Lemon-ups pulled off what the lower-ranking Girl Scout Cookies couldn't: A great, zippy flavor, crumbly-yet-crisp texture, and something printed on the cookies that makes me feel better about eating four in a single sitting.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, as these cookies are not the best lemon ones I've ever had (I would much rather have Tate's). But, they do have a fresher lemon essence than the Lemonades and a less crumbly texture. Rather than a thick lemon frosting on the bottom, the Lemon-ups have a much thinner glaze that doesn't take away from the texture of the cookies — a texture that's honestly more shortbread-adjacent than the actual shortbreads I tried for this review. 

The Lemon-ups aren't so lemony that they overwhelm the palate, and they're just sweet enough to stand in as an excellent dessert cookie. They are a little tame and certainly have less of a cult following than my top picks, but I do think they are a pretty darn good cookie and are deserving of a spot on the higher end.

Tagalongs were seemingly made for peanut butter lovers. While the Do-si-dos were rather restrained when it came to this flavor, Tagalongs jumped in fully, encasing a sweet vanilla cookie with a gob of peanut butter and chocolate. At this point, it was abundantly clear that, aside from the Exploremores, chocolate is just not something that Little Brownie Bakers does well. I couldn't taste the chocolate in these cookies at all, despite the fact that it covered the entire cookie. I was grateful that it wasn't super sweet, though, but I would have liked a little more depth from this chocolatey element, seeing as it takes up so much surface area.

However, I have nothing but positive things to say about the other two components: the peanut butter and the cookie. Biting into a Tagalong felt like I was grabbing a scoop of peanut butter from the jar — it was fatty and not at all texturally off-putting like it was in the Do-si-dos and was packed with all the richness I crave. The cookie, meanwhile, offered a great textural juxtaposition. 

These cookies certainly look a little worse for wear — the chocolate likely melted due to transit and the ambient temperature of my home — but they were still tasty. If the chocolate layer had been more intentionally flavored, Tagalongs would be tagging along their way to the top.

Samoas are what I personally consider to be an absolutely divine — and dare I say, perfect cookie. It marries ingredients and consistencies that generally work well together (soft caramel, toasted coconut, and rich chocolate), all encasing a cookie ring. It's my usual order from the table outside of my local Walmart. However, after trying it alongside other Girl Scout cookies, I can't say that it's my favorite cookie going forward.

What I do love about this cookie is that the textures and flavors are immaculate. However, after just two bites, I felt overwhelmed by the cloying sweetness of the caramel, which eclipsed the chocolate and the coconut, flavors that can usually hold their own. If the milk chocolate was swapped for something more bitter, it would have balanced the cookie out more — though, in turn, it would probably make it less enticing for folks who buy Samoas for the caramel, or perfect something that's as sweet as physically possible. My top two choices had a much better flavor balance than the Samoas, earning them higher spots on this ranking.

Thin Mints — there is just so much to say about you. When eaten at room temperature, you're average, at best. The cookie encasing your chocolate layer? Mealy, and a bit too crumbly. But when you're eaten straight from the freezer, you get your well-deserved Cinderella moment. Bippity, boppity, get in my mouth-ity. 

That being said, I tried every cookie on my list at room temperature, meaning I could pull out more of its faults than I could if it were frozen. Besides the too-crumbly cookie, the chocolate layer is mediocre and just acts as a sounding board for the mint. However, it's this mint flavor that makes the Thin Mints one of the best mint cookies out there. Its essence is lighter than an after-dinner mint, a mint candy, or really any other minty confection I've ever had. It's like a gentle shiver, and one that sends me back into the pack for another, causing me to overlook its mediocre texture. Despite being a chocolate cookie, it isn't at all sweet, which makes them even easier to eat. It's the addictive quality that edged them right above the Samoas, but they couldn't steal the crown from the darling of the bunch — and my favorite Girl Scout cookie of all time.

Wait ... didn't we already cover Samoas? Although Samoas and Caramel deLites are falsely thought of as being the same exact cookie, there are minor differences between the two. For one, they are baked by different bakeries (these by ABC Bakers and Samoas by Little Brownie Bakers), and at first glance, I noticed that the chocolate on the Caramel deLites had a lighter color. However, if you weren't looking too closely, you'd probably think they were, indeed, the same.

Despite Reddit reviewers saying otherwise, I do think that Caramel deLites are better than the already-good Samoas. The Caramel deLites' cookie is much crunchier than the Samoas, and the caramel flavor is far less cloying. When I bit into the Samoa, I felt like I was chewing through a dense caramel candy. The Caramel deLites had a better balance of cookie and caramel, and I could eat more of them without feeling as overwhelmed by the sugar. It's certainly a personal preference thing, but I do think that Caramel deLites have a far better flavor balance and are more palatable all around than Samoas, Thin Mints, and any other cookie on this list.

I've eaten my fair share of cookies over the years, from Pepperidge Farms offerings to all of the store-bought chocolate chip cookies I could find, so I had a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for when it came time to sit down and try the complete Girl Scout cookie lineup. The two main considerations I made when sampling each flavor were texture and flavor. Not only did I want to taste each component — be it the coconut, mint, chocolate, lemon, or peanut butter — but those flavors also had to be expressive and balanced. Cookies that were too cloying didn't rank as high as those with a balanced, approachable, and easily likable level of sweetness. I also ranked cookies that had a pleasant texture, meaning one that was not too dry or powdery, higher than those that were not crisp enough or somehow fell flat. The cookie should also be true to its style — meaning the shortbreads should be buttery and crisp, while the oatmeal cookies can get away with a little bit of grittiness.

I opened and sampled all of these offerings on the same day to ensure they were at peak freshness, and tried similar offerings from ABC Bakers or Little Brownie Bakers back-to-back to better compare and contrast them. Certainly, my rankings here are somewhat subjective and dependent on individual cookie preferences, but I believe my top picks are the most approachable and highest-quality cookie offerings that the Girl Scouts have — Scout's honor!