15 Dollar Tree Cookies You Need To Grab On Your Next Shopping Trip

As a long-time Dollar Tree shopper, I still look back fondly on the days where everything actually did cost a dollar. Despite the price hikes, I still consider Dollar Tree my go-to stop for everything from canned goods to candies (as well as a surprising selection of gourmet goodies). Dollar Tree cookies are also often on my list since there are a wide variety of these and many of the offerings are priced much lower than similar products at a standard supermarket. While Dollar Tree does carry some name brand cookies such as Chips Ahoy! and Oreo, I'm concentrating here on some of their lesser-known, more wallet-friendly products.

Some of these cookies resemble more famous products (see the two Girl Scout Cookie knockoffs), while some are old-timey treats I remember from my own distant childhood (pink-frosted animal crackers, sugar wafers, and almond windmills among them). Others, like gingersnaps and shortbread, are the kind of ingredient you could use in a recipe for pie crust or parfait. When they're reduced to crumbs, you'll find these cookies indistinguishable from a pricier product. Most importantly, not one of these items costs more than $1.25. If a cookie turns out to be not your cup of tea (and isn't improved by being dunked into said beverage), at least you won't have squandered a fortune.

Standard animal crackers are fun to play with and eat, but that's all because of the shape. Their flavor, on the other hand, is unexciting — not quite vanilla, not exactly graham, just kind of meh. Adding chocolate to the batter, however, is a total game changer, and Dollar Tree customers rave about the great taste of Stauffer's Chocolate Animal Crackers. As one person said of the product, "Really good chocolate flavor. Taste better than plain. A surprising find and a favorite!"

Purchase an 8-ounce bag of Stauffer's Chocolate Animal Crackers at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Whether it's your actual birthday or you just want a little celebration, a bag of bite-sized Classic Cookies Birthday Cake Crispy Minis will make for a festive break in the day. Not only are the cookies cake-flavored, but they are packed with colorful sprinkles (baked right in, not the kind that fall off the top and make a mess).

Purchase a 4-ounce bag of Classic Cookies Birthday Cake Crispy Minis at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Why are Danish-style butter cookies in a lidded canister considered to be a holiday item? Who even knows, but by now it's a time-honored tradition with which you must comply. If you'd rather not commit to a full-size package, though, you can observe the custom with a cute little mini tin of Dollar Tree's Cambridge & Thames Danish-Style Butter Cookies. The cookies come in all the traditional shapes — round, rectangle, ring-shaped, and pretzel — and taste of vanilla and butter, as they should. Also, the can has a picture of a castle on it and makes a nice little box for candies or keepsakes.

Purchase a 4-ounce canister of Cambridge & Thames Danish Style Butter Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

As both the name and the red plaid-patterned canister indicate, McGinnis Butter Shortbread Cookies are Scottish-inspired, although they're actually imported from India. The cookies are shaped like circles, squares, and triangles, and the flavor is more buttery than that of the Danish cookies. (Unlike its Scandinavian canned counterpart, these shortbread cookies contain no vanilla.) These go great with a cup of tea, but can also be used as the crust for a retro pudding-based dessert called (we kid you not) Next Best Thing to Robert Redford pie.

Purchase a 3.6-ounce canister of McGinnis Butter Shortbread Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Sugar wafers are an odd kind of cookie — they always remind me of communion hosts covered in frosting, but a more nondenominational descriptor might be KitKats without the chocolate covering. They're sweet, crunchy, and about as retro as you can get since sandwich-style wafer cookies date back to 19th-century Europe. The Columbina brand carried by Dollar Tree is imported from Colombia and the wafers are available in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and lemon flavors.

Purchase an 8.5-ounce, 20-count package of Columbina Sugar Wafers at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

How can you have a sugar wafer without the sugar? By replacing it with an artificial sweetener, of course. That way the cookies can be enjoyed by people who can't tolerate or wish to cut down on their consumption of sugar. Bauducco sugar-free wafers are sweetened with stevia and come in both chocolate and vanilla flavors.

Purchase a 4.2-ounce package of Bauducco Sugar-Free Wafers at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Thin Mints have been a staple of the Girl Scout Cookie catalog since the 1950s, and are something Alton Brown remembers fondly from his childhood. Beloved though they may be, they aren't always easy to get hold of if you don't work in an office surrounded by hard-selling Girl Scout parents; and even then, they're a strictly seasonal thing. As a year-round Girl Scout Cookie alternative (and a much cheaper one at that), Dollar Tree sells the remarkably similar Oven Baked Fudge Mint Cookies. One customer calls them an "amazing dupe for Thin Mints." Another review says, "They taste exactly like girl scout thin mint cookies at a fraction of the price."

Purchase a 9-ounce package of Oven Baked Fudge Mint Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Tagalongs, aka Peanut Butter Patties, are another Girl Scout Cookie favorite which dates back to the 1970s. Like Thin Mints, these cookies are unavailable outside of GSA cookie season. Fortunately for peanut butter lovers, Oven Baked Fudge Covered Cookies with Chocolate and Peanut Butter are a more than acceptable dupe (despite the clunky name). According to one Dollar Tree shopper, they "taste as good or even better than the Tagalong." Another enthuses, "Amazing. These are so good and you can NOT beat the price!"

Purchase a 7-ounce package of Oven Baked Fudge Covered Cookies with Chocolate and Peanut Butter at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

When my sisters and I were little, we loved holding rolled wafer cookies up to our eyes and pretending to be pirates with spyglasses. Piroulines are similarly shaped, though they don't provide quite the same view as our beloved "I Spy" cookies because of their chocolate hazelnut or dark chocolate cream filling. They are, however, far more flavorful than the unfilled cookies of my childhood, and with a little imagination they can still be used to play pirate.

Purchase a 3.5-ounce, eight-count box of Pirouline Crème-Filled Wafers at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Ordinarily I'm all about chocolate cookies, but sometimes I want something a little lighter-tasting, and one of my favorite cookies to have with tea is European Cookies Lemon-Flavored Shortbread. They're not too sweet and the lemony flavor is reminiscent of lemon zest or oil; nothing artificial. Although I usually devour the whole box, these cookies are also great for baking and would make the perfect crumb crust for the retro layered dessert known as lemon lush.

Purchase a 4.6-ounce box of European Cookies Lemon-Flavored Shortbread at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

In Miguel Cervantes' 1605 novel "Don Quixote," the titular character is a delusional knight errant known for tilting at windmills. While this isn't advisable outside of fiction, nibbling at windmills is perfectly permissible as long as they're the cookie kind. I remember windmill-shaped speculaas cookies (a Dutch specialty) being a regular feature at my kindergarten snack time, but these vintage treats aren't quite as common these days. Dollar Tree cares nothing for food fads, however, so it's one place you can still find Lil' Dutch Maid Almond Windmill Cookies.

Purchase a 10-ounce package of Lil' Dutch Maid Almond Windmill Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Plain old animal crackers have been commercially produced since the 1800s, but in the early 20th century the founder of Mother's Cookies got the bright idea of dipping them in pink or white frosting and covering them with sprinkles. Over a century later, Mother's Circus Animal Cookies are still a staple of kids' birthday parties, and they're one of the big name brands sold at Dollar Tree. If you want a little more bang for your buck and a quarter, you can opt for a slightly larger package of similar-looking Palmer Frosted Animal Cookies.

Purchase a 3-ounce bag of Mother's Circus Animal Cookies or a 4-ounce bag of Palmer Frosted Animal Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Here's a money-saving tip for all my fellow Dollar Tree devotees: Recipes for Oreo mug cakes, dirt cakes, and no-bake Oreo balls taste just as good with no-name knockoff sandwich cookies. You also don't need to stick with the standard chocolate sandwich cookie. A Minees Sandwich Cookie assortment comes with two three-packs each of five different flavor combos: chocolate with vanilla filling, vanilla with vanilla filling, vanilla with orange filling, vanilla with strawberry filling, and chocolate with banana filling. Just think of the possibilities!

Purchase a 10-pack of assorted Minees Sandwich Cookies at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Ginger snaps are quite tasty on their own, but they can also be turned into flavorful cheesecake crusts and delicious streusel toppings. The best pot roast of your life is a German dish called sauerbraten which makes use of this ingredient. Needless to say, you don't need to buy top-of-the-line cookies to cook with. Lil' Dutch Maid Old Fashioned Ginger Snaps are just as spicy and snappy as you could wish for and are priced lower than you'll find anywhere else.

Purchase a 10-ounce bag of Lil' Dutch Maid Old Fashioned Ginger Snaps at Dollar Tree for $1.25.

Who doesn't love a zebra-striped confection? Dollar Tree's candy selection includes an old-time treat called Zebra Bars, while its snack aisle features Oven Baked Fudge Striped Shortbread, a product I've rechristened as zebra cookies. Baby zebras are brown, after all, and they look just as sweet as these chocolate-drizzled cookies taste. "Best cookies on earth ... I get these from my local dollar tree almost every other day," raves one satisfied shopper.

Purchase a 13-ounce package of Oven Baked Fudge Striped Shortbread at Dollar Tree for $1.25.