Halloween is creeping, crawling, and slithering up on us, but have no fear, for we have all the Halloween Food Ideas you need to brew up a fantastic party! Whether you seek spooky appetizers, creepy main dishes, or frightening treats, our festive recipes are sure to please.
We have classic recipes like ghost toast and mummy dogs, plus more imaginative recipes like spider tacos and jack-o-lantern quesadillas, whatever your wicked heart desires. If you love Halloween, or just love great Halloween Party Food, you’ve come to the right place.
Halloween Food Ideas:
Start with a Spooky Breakfast
Who says you need to wait until the sun goes down to get ghoulish? Kick it off first thing!
Ghost toast- Break out your knife skills or a cookie cutter for adorable gluten-free toast cutouts! Try pumpkins, bats, and witch’s hats, too.
Eyeball eggs- A well-placed black olive makes a fried egg truly frightening. No need to purchase a whole jar of olives-just purchase a few from the salad bar or deli station at the grocery store.
Tombstone Hash Browns- Put the ketchup in a mini squeeze bottle or pastry bag to pipe your words.
Mummy Sausage– Wrap mini breakfast sausages with a strip of puff pastry, crescent roll dough, or gluten-free pie crust before baking. In a hurry, use a slice of pre-made pancake. Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pancakes are a favorite in our house.
Wormy Oatmeal– Sprinkle cinnamon or cocoa on top and tuck in a few gummy worms for a fun, quick and easy breakfast. Get creative with props like plastic spiders if you’d like.
Creepy Main Dishes
These great recipe ideas serve as great Halloween party decorations as well as some delicious food to fortify your ghosts and goblins (or Taylor Swifts and Ninjas?) before their trick or treating. Candy eyes, or cleverly positioned black olives can make the ordinary into extraordinarily creepy food, so feel free to improvise if inspiration strikes!
- Mummy Calzone
- Spaghetti and Eyeballs – Turn regular meatballs into Halloween party food. Add a circle of mozzarella cheese and a slice of black or green olive to the meatballs. You can even slice a cheese stick to make the white of the eye.
- Eyeball Chicken Nuggets– A dab of sauce, like honey mustard or ranch and an olive or carrot slice transforms the mundane chicken nugget into a Halloween Party Food.
- Mummy dogs– A spooky take on pigs in a blanket made with gluten-free pie crust strips.
- Feet Loaf – Yep. You read that right. You can Google it. It’s a thing. Shape my amazing and easy Meat Loaf Recipe into feet (or a hand, or any gory thing you’d like, I suppose). Add celery or onion for toenails and some ketchup strategically and you have a delicious (but absolutely visually sinister) Halloween dish. Warning: once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It definitely checks the box for gross and kids absolutely love it!
- Spider Taco Ring– A great party dish to serve with salsa, shredded cheese, and sour cream. Gluten-free pie crust works great for this recipe!
Witchy Appetizers and Finger Foods:
Appetizers and easy finger foods make great Halloween party food because party guests can snack and mingle without the need for a knife and fork. Try some of these fun kid-tested and adult-approved spooky ideas. They are more on the cute side of Halloween rather than the gross, which, I admittedly prefer.
- Mummy Brie– Another classic appetizer, brie en croute, takes on a Halloween theme when you slice the puff pastry strategically to resemble a mummy. Bonus points for adding eyeballs!
- Spooky Witch Fingers–
- Guacamole Spider– A bowl of guacamole surrounded by blue corn chips forms the body. Stretegic eyes enhance the effect.
- String Cheese Broom Sticks– This classic never goes out of style. Tie a chive or garlic chive around the broom for an authentic touch. I get 3 brooms from each cheese stick.
- Eyeball meatballs: Serve them with toothpicks to make them finger friendly and dip them in marinara sauce.
- Eyeball Falafel: Same concept as the meatballs but plant-based for our vegetarians!
- Spooky Pizza– Top mini-bagel cheese pizzas with pepperoni eyeballs, black olive spiders, or turn them into Jack-o-lanterns with slices of cut out pepperoni.
- Witch’s Hat Cheese Ball– Both cheddar or cream cheese based cheese ball recipes work great for this recipe. For the black color of the hat, roll the cheese ball in poppyseeds, black sesame seeds, or crushed blue corn tortilla chips. A ribbon of carrot works well around the brim.
- Pumpkin Cheese Ball– You get the idea! Use soft cheddar or port wine cheese. Roll into ball in plastic wrap and use a knife to score the pumpkin lines before placing on the charcuterie board.
Veggies and Fruits:
Don’t forget to put out some fruit and vegetable dishes at your Halloween party to balance out all the Halloween sweets. Veggies and dip, fruit salad or kebabs make great party foods and are easy to prep. Don’t feel like carving a mini-pumpkin? No problem. Just put one or two on the tray to make the platter more festive.
- Clementine jack-o-lanterns- let the kids draw on the faces with a permanent marker.
- Veggies and Dip in a mini-pumpkin
- Carved Watermelon fruit salad- carve your watermelon as you would a Jack-o-Lantern.
- Baked Cinnamon Apples- they smell as good as they look!
Sweet Treats and Desserts:
Do you really need dessert at a Halloween party when kids (and adults:) will be eating plenty of candy? Yes! Try some of these fun ideas for delicious dessert recipes. For ease, many of the recipes combine store bought items with homemade touches to keep prep easy. A dab of white chocolate (or cream cheese) and a centered chocolate chip makes an easy eyeball to increase the spooky factor of almost any dessert. Kids and grown ups alike will enjoy the decorations.
- Witch’s Brew Fondue– Make white chocolate fondue with a little food coloring and make up creepy names for dipping items.
- Ghost Sugar Cookies– My Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie recipe works beautifully for these. Tip: Ghosts are the easiest to decorate if you’re short on time.
- Pretzel and Peanut Butter Cup Brooms– These are a super easy Gluten-Free dessert.
- Apple Cinnamon Bread
- Witch Finger Cookies– classic sugar cookies + green food coloring and creepy sliced almond nails.
- Candy Corn Slushies
- Day of the Dead Fruit Torte– Sweet graham crust, creamy brown sugar and cream cheese filling and decorated with fruit- this is the most fun dessert to decorate!
- Graveyard Cupcakes or Cake– A spooky take on “dirt” cupcakes. Just add an edible tombstone to your chocolate cupcakes. Add some crumbled chocolate wafer cookies on top of the frosting for “dirt.”
What if I don’t have time for making Halloween themed food for my Halloween party?
Don’t worry! If the Halloween holiday sneaks up on you (Is that even possible? It’s September 15th and I’ve already run into several walls of candy stockpiles at my local grocery store and heard Monster Mash piped through the store’s speakers!?!). But if it creeps up on you unawares, try these last minute party fixes:
- Head to the seasonal aisle of your local grocery store and purchase a few mini-pumpkins and gourds to place on the table as a centerpiece.
- Send your kids on a walk to collect and arrange twigs of colorful fall leaves in a vase for an autumn feel.
- Or grab a bag of plastic spiders or other spooky props to sprinkle on the dishes interspersed with a few bowls of Halloween candy. Add few candles and put on Monster Mash. Done.
And even if you don’t get to any of that, cheers to you for hosting a Halloween party! No need to wow your family and friends with special Halloween Party Food. They know you are awesome and love you with or without decorations:) Just make sure to serve something yummy!
Share your Halloween Ideas with us!