In this post, I share six brands of gluten-free animal crackers and what I think of each. This is a must-read article if you love animal crackers but can’t eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosures.
Animal crackers (or animal cookies) are slightly sweet, crispy vanilla cookies cut into the shape of various animals.
If you’re a child of the 80s, you might remember carrying around a box of Nabisco’s Barnum Animal Crackers. Another childhood favorite was Mother’s Cookies, which were frosted animal cookies, a mix between an animal cracker and a frosted cookie. Ah, those were the days.
Today, if you have celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, or gluten intolerance, Barnum’s Animal Crackers and Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies are off-limits because they’re both made with wheat flour.
The good news is that six different gluten-free animal cracker brands come close to tasting like real animal crackers.
I taste-tested each animal cracker and share what I think of them all below. This list is in alphabetical order.
(1) Glutino Animal Crackers
Glutino is an OG gluten-free brand that has been around since 1983 before gluten-free was cool. I love a lot of Glutino treats, including their chocolate wafer cookies – yum!
Glutino Animal Crackers are crispy and buttery with hints of vanilla flavor. The cookies are beautifully golden and come in traditional animal shapes.
Like all gluten-free animal crackers, they’re a bit gritty, but I found Glutino to be the least gritty of the bunch and one of our family’s favorite animal cracker brands.
My main criticism of the cookie is the packaging. It doesn’t reseal, so you have a big mess on your hands once you open the bag. The packaging could definitely use a modern-day upgrade.
Ingredients: Tapioca starch, sugar, rice flour, palm oil, tapioca syrup, dried egg whites, cassava flour, potato flour, water, salt, soy lecithin, baking soda, xanthan gum, natural flavor, and caramel color.
Claims and Disclosures: It’s certified gluten-free by the GFCO and lists egg and soy as allergens.
(2) Goodie Girl Magical Animal Crackers
Goodie Girl is known for making nostalgic cookies free from gluten, including Mint Cookies (similar to Thin Mints), Sandwich Cookies (similar to Oreos), and now Magical Animal Crackers.
Goodie Girl Magical Animal Crackers come in a beautifully designed bright blue box with a shiny unicorn on the cover. The animal crackers are cut into the shapes of unicorns, mermaids, dragons, and unicorn whales.
I found the animal crackers to be sweet and crunchy without much grit, likely because they’re made with oat flour. Please note that oats are a controversial ingredient in gluten-free land, and some people cannot tolerate oats due to gluten cross-reactivity.
Ingredients: Besides oat flour, the cookies are made with cane sugar, palm oil, rice flour, invert sugar, soy lecithin, inulin, salt, and xanthan gum.
Claims and Disclosures: Goodie Girl Animal Crackers are certified gluten-free by the GFCO and contain soy.
(3) Kinnikinnick Kritters
Kinnikinnick Kritters are crispy, buttery cookies that taste like vanilla wafers. The animal crackers come in traditional animal shapes and are white vs. golden brown like the other animal crackers.
What I like most about Kinnikinnick’s animal crackers isn’t the taste or texture; it’s that they’re free from the most common allergens, including soy, peanuts, dairy, corn, and nuts. This makes them the most accessible animal cracker brand to those with other food allergies beyond gluten.
Ingredients: The animal crackers are made from cane sugar, pea starch, potato starch, shortening, white rice flour, tapioca starch, water, tapioca syrup, pea protein, salt, pea fiber, natural flavor, modified cellulose, inulin, sodium bicarbonate, sunflower lecithin, and beta-carotene for color.
Claims and Disclosures: They’re certified gluten-free by Beyond Celiac and certified vegan. While no eggs are on the ingredient list, the label says it “may contain egg.”
(4) Little GF Chefs
Little GF Chefs is a baking kit company that makes a gluten-free animal cracker baking kit that tastes superior to any store brand. The kit comes with a flour blend, sprinkling sugar, icing sugar, and adorable animal stamp cookie cutters, as pictured below.
You’ll follow the instructions to make the dough, cut the cookies, and bake them, which I did with my daughter. We had so much fun!
While they looked like animal crackers, they tasted less like a crispy vanilla cookie and more like a soft gingersnap cookie. Regardless, they were delicious and beautiful, and they were my favorite animal crackers of the bunch.
I also love that we got to keep the animal cracker cookie cutters/stamps to recreate the magic at home. I may have to try GF Jules’s animal cracker recipe in the future.
This and other delicious and allergen-friendly baking kits are on the Little GF Chefs website. You can learn more about how Little GF Chefs started and other kits in my article, Little GF Chefs Review: Best Gluten-Free Baking Kits for Kids.
(5) Mi-Del Arrowroot Animals
Mi-Del Arrowroot Animals is Mi-Del’s version of gluten-free animal crackers. The crackers are crispy and offer a sweet vanilla flavor. They’re also golden brown and cut into cute animal shapes. They have a slightly gritty texture but offer a satisfying gluten-free animal cracker alternative overall.
Ingredients: Mi-Del Arrowroot Animals are made from a blend of flours and starches, including rice flour, corn flour, soy flour, potato starch, corn starch, arrowroot flour, and xanthan gum, as well as cane sugar, palm oil, canola oil, invert sugar syrup, natural flavors, soy lecithin, baking soda, sea salt, and organic flavor.
Claims and Disclosures: The cookies are labeled “gluten-free,” made in a certified peanut-free facility, and are non-GMO. Mi-Del contains soy.
(6) Simple Truth Animal Crackers
Kroger’s wellness brand, Simple Truth, offers a gluten-free animal cracker alternative. While Kroger gets an A for effort, if I’m being honest, Simple Truth Animal Crackers were my family’s least favorite of the bunch.
The cookies were crunchy and crispy and a bit gritty like the others. They also offered a buttery flavor thanks to the addition of butter. And, of course, they, too, had a golden look.
However, the animal crackers had an overwhelming coconut flavor, which we didn’t like. While coconut isn’t listed in the ingredient list, it is listed in the may contains statement. I suspect coconut flavoring is the “natural flavoring” mentioned in the ingredient list.
Ingredients: The animal crackers are made from soy flour, rice flour, potato flour, corn flour, potato starch, corn starch, xanthan gum, sugar, butter, arrowroot flour, canola oil, honey, natural flavors, soy lecithin, egg powder, baking soda, and sea salt.
Claims and Disclosures: The crackers are labeled “gluten-free” and non-GMO. They contain no high-fructose corn syrup. They contain soy, milk, and eggs and may contain coconut.
Missing a Brand of Animal Crackers?
Animal crackers are a nostalgic treat you don’t have to miss out on when following a gluten-free diet. There are plenty of gluten-free animal cracker brands to choose from, many of which can be found at Walmart, Target, and Kroger stores and online. You’re bound to find one you like. You can even purchase a make-your-own animal cracker kit from Little GF Chefs to get you started!
Ranking from best to worst was hard for me to do. I feel like I’m splitting hairs as they all began to taste similar. But my family helped me come up with this ranking of the best to least best store-bought gluten-free animal crackers brands (excluding Little GF Chefs):
- Glutino
- Goodie Girl
- Kinnikinnick
- Mi-Del
- Simple Truth
Do you have a favorite gluten-free animal cracker brand? Am I missing a brand you love? Please let me know by leaving a comment below.
Additional Reading
You might enjoy these testing articles, too:
You need to study up on soy!
Soy is bad for everyone especially celiac disease & gluten sensitivity people. Soy acts like gluten in a celiac disease person. The ingredients in the cookies with soy should not label safe for celiac disease people. Because it’s not!
I had a doctor this summer when found out I had celiac disease he asked me if I ate soy, when I told him NO he said thank goodness, soy is bad & off limits for all celiac disease & gluten sensitivity people.
Soy triggers cancer.
Destroys your thyroid, depletes thyroid meds. Changes your hormones. Can make you fat.
They spray roundup on the ground around soy plants kills the weeds but not the soy! You are eating roundup!!!
Thank You!