You Can Have Girl Scout Cookie Season All Year Long With These Copycat Tagalongs (2025)

If you, like me, wait for Girl Scout Cookie season all year, then these cookies are for you. Tagalongs and Thin Mints are definitely the top ranked cookies, and this copycat recipe is spot on. They're pretty simple to make for being a layered cookie. A quick shortbread base is topped with a mound of peanut butter and dipped in chocolate—that’s it! There’s no need to suffer through a craving all year anymore.

How To Make Girl Scout Tagalongs

INGREDIENTS

The Cookies

• All you need are four ingredients to create the shortbread base for these Tagalongs: unsalted butter, confectioners’ sugar, all-purpose flour, and kosher salt. We use kosher salt in our recipes, which I recommend using. If you use iodized, the salt amounts will be off.

The Filling & Coating

• Peanut Butter: Like most peanut butter desserts, a smooth peanut butter is best for Tagalongs and is what the original cookie uses. I don’t recommend using a natural peanut butter that needs to be stirred. Natural peanut butters are typically thinner and will make dipping your cookies more difficult. A thicker peanut butter like Jiff or Skippy are best and will hold up on your Tagalongs.
• Chocolate: The best part about making your own version of a cookie is that you can customize them to your own liking. I use semisweet chocolate for these cookies because that's what the original uses, and it's my preferred chocolate for most baked goods. Semisweet is a good level of sweetness with the peanut butter and cookie. If you like milk or dark chocolate best, feel free to go ahead and dip your tagalongs in those chocolates instead.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

We’re creating a simple shortbread as the base for these cookies. In a large bowl, beat the butter and confectioners’ sugar with a hand mixer until very smooth and creamy. Take the time to make sure all of your ingredients are combined and smooth before moving on to the next step! Once everything is combined, add the flour and salt and beat until a dough comes together in your bowl.

Lightly flour a work surface, then turn out your dough. Using a rolling pin (or whatever you prefer to use), roll the dough until it’s about 1/4" thick. Once the dough is the desired thickness, grab your cookie cutter. There really isn’t a substitute here—make sure to use a round cookie cutter for the perfect 1 3/4" round bases. Line a baking sheet with parchment and arrange them 1" apart so that they don’t spread and touch. Gather your scraps (nothing is going to waste here!) and cut out more rounds. If the dough starts to feel too warm, no worries—simply wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it until it’s cold enough to work with. Once the rounds are cut and placed on the baking sheet, freeze until solid, then bake until set and lightly golden around the edges. Let the cookies completely cool before moving on to assembling with the filling and coating!

While your cookies are cooling, it’s time to move onto the peanut butter filling. Mix up some peanut butter with confectioners’ sugar to make it extra smooth and slightly sweeter. Take care not to make your peanut butter too thin—you want it to hold its own on the cookie. Spread a little bit of the peanut butter on each cookie, leaving a border around the edges so that the peanut butter doesn’t merge with the chocolate coating.

Now it’s time to melt the chocolate. To ensure smooth melted chocolate, melt the chips in 30-second bursts and stir after each one. Your chips might not look melted, but once you start to stir, they will be. Heating the chips for too long will cause them to burn and turn gritty. I often like to melt my chocolate in batches to make dipping easier. If your kitchen is cold or if you don’t think you’ll be working quickly, the chocolate could start to set up before you're done, and that makes getting a smooth coating more difficult. If you feel your chocolate is too thick, you can thin it out by adding a teaspoon of melted coconut oil or vegetable oil until the chocolate is easier to work with.

It helps to use a fork or offset spatula when dipping your cookies. Balance the cookie on top and dip into the chocolate and spoon chocolate over top. Tap the fork on the edge of the bowl several times to help get rid of excess and make the top smooth. After dipping your cookies. you can place them on either a wire cooling rack or a sheet of parchment. The wire rack will allow extra chocolate to drip off, but the cookies might stick slightly to the metal as they chill. Just use an offset to help lift them up. Parchment will make them easier to remove, but will cause a skirt of chocolate around the cookie after they're set. It’s certainly not a bad thing, but may not be the look you are after. Whatever method you choose, refrigerate your cookies until the chocolate is fully set before enjoying.

The full list of ingredients and instructions can be found in the recipe below.

Tagalong Variations

These cookies are pretty classic as is, but if you're looking to get creative, you've got options! Don’t want to use peanut butter? You can use almond butter or another nut butter of your choice. I still just recommend using a smooth version and one that is of similar consistency to peanut butter. Looking for an upgraded version of this cookie? Check out these Tagalong Mallomars if you're a marshmallow lover.

Storage

These cookies get better with time, which makes them the ideal cookie to make ahead. The cookie base can be made and stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days before assembling. Once assembled, the cookies are best kept in the fridge to keep the chocolate from melting. Store them in an airtight container with parchment between each layer for up to 1 week. They can also be frozen for up to 1 month as well.