15 Best Keebler Cookies Ranked Worst To Best

If strange chemical flavor is what you're looking for in a cookie, Chips Deluxe Soft Batch delivers in spades. The texture is a welcome change from the otherwise crispy Keebler collection. But something in the mix doesn't come across well. Perhaps there's something sinister in the softening agent ... good luck identifying that ingredient on the list. So while you're captivated by the tender goodness of the cookie itself, your enchantment is short-lived when the unnatural taste finally makes its way from your taste buds to your brain.

At this point in the tasting process, you may be wondering what made you so foolish as to choose this inferior specimen when there were so many better choices lining the shelves in bright yellow packages before you. It's a cookie lover's dilemma that can only be overcome through experience or advice from a wiser source. Consider us that source, and skip the soft batch. Head back toward crunchier fare, preferably something with a chocolate coating that can stand up to being dunked in milk. 

Vienna Fingers are the elevator music of the Keebler universe. These vanilla crème sandwich-style nibbles do their best to emulate tea time biscuits in the best European tradition. What they actually do is disappoint the taster by being almost entirely lacking in flavor. The recipe is saved by a touch of vanilla that leaps out just before you finish chewing each bite. It's either a near-miss or a near-hit, depending on which direction you lean. In this list, it's a near-miss, especially with so many more full-flavored options to choose from.

To be honest, Vienna Fingers may be familiar, but they aren't the cookie you think of first when you hit the Keebler section of the cookie aisle. You're cruising for mind-blowing inventions, which the company delivers in so many different packages. Vienna Fingers are more like the cookies you keep in the back of your pantry to serve to guests so they don't devour the good stuff. So while we don't necessarily advise grabbing a pack for your own snacking or dessert needs, keeping a decoy package handy ensures you'll still have your favorites when your friends finally go home, leaving you to snack in peace.

Who would have thought that adding cranberries and almonds to an innocent butter cookie could cause so much grief? For Cranberry and Almond Sandies, Keebler proudly announces on the package the use of real cranberries and almonds. But the pieces are so tiny, you barely get a hint of the cranberry bits hidden in the dough. And the almonds add a touch of crunch with a kick of flavor at the end of the taste profile, but by then this cookie has lost your attention. Full-blown cranberry raisins that didn't feel like they spent too long in the dehydrator would surely ramp up the zing factor, while larger almond slivers could help bring the flavor to the fore instead of leaving it as an afterthought. Barring any of these improvements, the potential presented by Cranberry and Almond Sandies is wasted on a dream of better-tasting cookies with more enjoyment to offer.

The most interesting discovery we made while sampling this fruit-and-nut Sandies iteration is that the closer Keebler comes to including natural-adjacent add-ins into its recipes, the further it gets from what makes its cookies so much fun. It's best that Keebler sticks with its fundamental magic.

Sometimes, more chocolate is just too much. Such is the case with E.L. Fudge Double Stuffed. Taking a cue from the Oreo world, Keebler doubles up on the chocolate filling in its original E.L. Fudge treats. While the novelty feels familiar, the fudge frosting isn't tasty enough to warrant the extra. How does such a winner in its original form go so haywire in what would seem to be a satisfying improvement? It could be the thickness of the filling, which measures out into what can only be called a huge glob, to use the sloppy snacker measuring standard.

Keebler has experimented in the past with adding fudgy middle stuff to its cookies, as it did with Magic Middles (remember those?), but something about the structure of these bites just doesn't set off fireworks. With so much manic flavor bouncing around in the tree house kitchen, it may be best for the elves to stick with what works best: simple combinations of ingredients that don't test the bounds of food physics. Ambition is nice, but snacks that make sense and taste great are better.

The pretty pattern is hypnotic, especially if you spin these donut-shaped disks on your finger. But you don't need to be in a trance to understand how special the original Fudge Stripes cookies are. These fun goodies have been exciting cookie fans for generations with eye-catching strips of fantastic frosting adorning a thin, graham-flavored wafer embossed with lacy hieroglyphics. What kid doesn't love digging into a wiggling, artful chocolate design that looks strikingly similar to animal prints, only easier to get your hands on and much more delicious? For that matter, what adult doesn't love it just as much? And there's more chocolate on the bottom ... the wonders just don't cease here.

These circular striped wonders greatly lend themselves to the effort of fun food creations. They can serve as train wheels on a homemade gingerbread train just as easily as stacking up to create cookie castle towers. But if using them as industrial ingredients seems like more effort than you're willing to exert, rest assured that they do just fine as a dessert or a snack without any added labor.

Real pecans scattered throughout crisp shortbread makes Pecan Sandies a butter blend that cookie connoisseurs have loved for ages. Unlike the addition of cranberries and almonds to the recipe, including pecans in the batter turns out to be a stroke of genius that imbues the butter essence with a sweet and nutty sophistication that makes cookie lovers of all stripes happy snackers. This mix is a great negotiation that doesn't compromise the core goodness of the original cookie, a must in any newfangled attempt to elevate the base recipe.

Younger snackers are bound to gravitate toward the more dazzling members of the Keebler cookie club. It's not fair to expect kids to love a fairly plain treat when there are treats with stripes and faces and chocolate waiting within reach. This is not a bad thing. While the youngsters are busy gorging themselves on richer selections, the grown-ups can settle in and have an elegant time enjoying a cookie clearly made with the discerning snacker in mind. Everybody wins.

The combination of real coconut and chocolate chips is a winning combination in these classic cookies. Chips Deluxe Coconut stirs up nostalgic recollections of old-fashioned macaroons, the coconutty kind that dominated the cookie aisle before Instagram turned macaroons into influencer-famous food. It's something of a vanilla-flavored double-down that makes the chips taste even more chocolatey.

The most special aspect of these reserved goodies is the overall sensation they provide when you dig in. The added toothiness gives your teeth a sweet something extra to chew on, providing a textural complexity that usually comes from pecan chunks or walnut pieces. While those might serve a traditional purpose in the recipe, Keebler goes in an unexpected direction that elevates a simple cookie into a special treat. What you get in the package is a thoughtful take on a timeless cookie that brings something new to the table. Instead of following the crowd and adding salted caramel or brownie bits, Keebler keeps it classic and freshens up an old-fashioned favorite. Those elves are something else!

Grasshopper cookies are as close to Thin Mints as you can get without waiting for cookie season to circle back around. With treats this special in the Keebler assortment, you know have a sure winner for a taste-and-rank round-up. These all-time classics bring together crisp chocolate wafers and mint-flavored fudge coating with so much phenomenal flavor that it's surprising that snackers don't have mint-scented steam streaming from their nostrils when they eat them. It would be a fun feature, if the elves could ever figure out how to make that happen.

You might think they're a bit too close to the Girl Scouts' top cookie moneymaker, and you aren't wrong. Keebler may have been sued over its inauthentic use of the word "fudge", but these chocolate mint wonders are created in the very same factory as Thin Mints, packaged and sold under the Keebler banner. The factory is even called Little Brownie Bakers, a fun overlap to the name of the introductory level of the organization where all fledgling Girl Scouts begin. So when you jump into a box of Grasshoppers, you're actually eating honest-to-goodness Thin Mints. If that doesn't take top prize in the cookie stack, nothing does.