peppermint meringue cookies

Peppermint meringue cookies are a light, minty, and beautiful holiday cookie. They taste like crunchy puffs of peppermint candy that melt in your mouth, leaving a cool and refreshing butter mint flavor behind. We just love crispy, crunchy pop of sweet mint.

Why I love it:

These are the cutest holiday cookie. They’re so simple to make (I'm looking at you roll out cookies with flood frosting and stiff frosting and 27 shades of food colorings). But despite their simplicity, they taste delicious and feel just as festive!

I just love the airy puffs of meringue that carry so much flavor with them. I also love their flexibility-- spray with luster spray, drizzle with dark chocolate, sprinkle with crushed peppermints. You can keep them basic or go all out with extra holiday flair.

For the best results, use a tiny bit of peppermint extract (too much will deflate your meringue) and bake these up on a dry day! Humidity is the nemesis of a crisp meringue cookie.

Have fun with this recipe and keep reading for ALL the tips to set yourself up for meringue success.

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peppermint meringue cookie ingredients:

how to make peppermint meringues:

1. Paint the inside of a piping bag with 3 stripes of red food coloring.
2. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt to soft peaks.
3. Slowly add sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff and glossy.
4. Stir in peppermint and vanilla extracts.
5. Pipe onto sheet pans and bake until firm and no longer sticky.
6. Turn off the oven and let meringue cookies dry out for at least another 1 ½ hours

make these peppermint meringues your own:

• Dip bottoms in melted dark chocolate 
• Stir in shaved chocolate before piping
• Drizzle with melted white chocolate and sprinkle with crushed peppermints
• Try alternating red and green stripes
• Skip the colorful stripes and mix a few drops of food coloring into the meringue at the end
• Skip piping: use a spoon to dollop them on the baking sheet
• Fold in ¼ cup crushed peppermint candies
• Brush the outside with edible gold powder or use luster spray) for a pretty shimmer
• Pipe into candy cane shapes

a note about peppermint extract:

Peppermint extract is a mixture of alcohol and peppermint essential oils. Unfortunately, fat (the peppermint essential oil, in this case) will deflate a meringue.

I’ve tested this every which way, and I suggest only adding ½ teaspoon of peppermint extract. I’ve dabbled with more (up to 1 teaspoon) and the increase in flavor is minimal compared to how much volume is lost.

Too much peppermint extract will disrupt the protein-air bubble network (foam) and produce a meringue that is too soft to pipe.

Important tips for the best peppermint meringue cookies:

• Temperature: It’s easiest to cleanly separate cold eggs, but room temperature eggs whip up the best. So pull out your eggs, separate the whites (discard any that get popped and contact the yolk), and let them come to room temperature before whipping.
• Use super clean equipment: If at all in doubt, re-wash your mixer bowl and whisk attachment to guarantee there’s no fat or oil residue that could interfere with the meringue.
• Superfine sugar (aka caster sugar): If you can't find this, just grind up granulated sugar in a food processor for a few minutes. This fine sugar dissolves more quickly and evenly in the meringue which gives the cookies a smooth, glossy texture and stable structure.
• Leave them in the oven: The bake time is 1 ½ hours, after which time the outside of the meringue cookies will be crisp but the insides still soft. Leave them in the oven for another few hours to fully dry out. The result is a super crunchy, airy meringue cookie!
• The humidity nemesis: Sugar is hygroscopic, which means it attracts water. We know this intuitively when hard candy gets sticky (if you’re not confident about this, crush up a candy cane, put it in a bowl, and wait a few hours. It will clump together and get sticky).
  • Same with meringues: they absorb moisture in the air will very quickly soften and get sticky. They are tricky to enjoy in humid places like the PNW (hello Oregon!).
  • The best advice here is: 1. Keep them in the oven, 2. Enjoy them as quickly as possible, 3. Re-crisp them (dehydrate, essentially) as needed.

Re-crisp soggy meringue cookies:

Put them in the oven at 200°F for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and let them sit for an hour or so to dry out.

more meringue cookies to make:

lemon meringue cookies

hazelnut meringue cookies

double chocolate meringue cookies

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