If you’re looking for cookies with Filipino-inspired flavors, I recommend trying Salamat Cookies. The business started in Spring 2020 and what started as a Thank You cookie for locals in Indianapolis turned into something bigger, now shipping nationwide. I chatted with Salamat Cookie’s Founder + CEO, Mike W. to learn more about what they’ve been up to.
Dee: How did these unique cookie flavors come into fruition? By accident?
Mike: That’s a great question! They came about when Mama (Odie) was teaching me how to bake during covid —back one and a half years ago (May 2020), I didn’t know how to bake a cookie to save my life. They started out as “thank you” cookies I was giving away to folks who were helping me out during the pandemic— like our good chiropractor friends and biomechanics trainer. And that’s how they got their name—because SALAMAT means “thank you” in Filipino. One day I was asked if the cookies were for sale, said, “uhhhhh, yup!” And we’re still baking until this day.
D: What was your first flavor?
M: WHOA Philippine Mango™️ —that’s rolled oats, white chocolate chips, and hand-cut dried Philippine mango chips. While back at the start (April 2020), I wanted to bake some special cookies for my good friend Christine’s birthday. I asked Mama, “Ever tried mango in a cookie?” She said no—so I drove over to Aldi down the street, bought some Philippine mango chips, grabbed some scissors and got to cutting. The first I ever baked solo was an oatmeal, cranberry chia cookie —and with the mango, thought white chocolate sounded like a really good and just went with it. That was the first time we had ever shipped cookies and no clue that’d be would be the start of SALAMAT Cookies!
D: Do you make custom flavors? I’m thinking of a special Dee Cuisine flavor like Turon or a Champorado inspired cookie.
M: We do! It’s been so fun making special cookies—often inspired by our community. Our “What’s A TURON?™️“ cookie is actually my favorite and champorado has been on our radar for a while —just been waiting for when it feels right to drop something like that. Interested in hear what ideas come to mind—always looking to collab cuz building community, collaborating, and sharing FilAm culture is what we’re all about 🙂
D: What are your plans for 2022? Any new flavors to hit your cookie lineup?
M: Oooooweeee—now that’s a beautifully loaded question. I literally just closed my notebook before checking email a second ago with about 8 new cookie ideas, and couldn’t be more excited about 2022! We’ll be dropping our first Indian inspired flavor in January and tons of other Filipino inspired flavors throughout the year.
Our plan for 2022 is to continue growing the team and sharing FilAm flavors, cultural, along with building community across the globe. Our goal is to still keep working towards acquiring our first cookie truck (in bright yellow of course), to do many more pop-ups (perhaps our first out of the country), and to continue finding ways to give back and share thanks and gratitude. We have a couple more top secret ideas we’re working on as well and looking forward to sharing those as they develop more Q3 and Q4 of next year as well.
Order your Salamat Cookies on their website: https://www.salamatcookies.com/
