Halloween party foods have one job: travel well, look the part, and disappear before the night is over. Ready for all those fun Halloween parties? So are we, but we always end up needing to make something to take to them at the last minute, and never want to show up empty handed. Here are 50 Halloween food ideas that hold up on a table, and plenty of them work as Halloween potluck ideas, the kind that survive a car ride and a folding table. Some are creepy Halloween food aimed at the adults, some are just cute, and many can be made quickly. Don’t let your lack of time stand in the way, these spooky treats are simple.
Don’t spend all your time making Halloween food, though. You still want to have time for making spooky decor for your house or big costume bash. Get your home ready for Halloween with our easy DIY Halloween decorations.
Be sure to save some time to create the perfect outfit from our list of DIY Halloween costume ideas and of course, you want the best Halloween makeup tutorials, too. Need some fun costume ideas for couples then try these: DIY Halloween Costumes for Couples. If you’ve waited until the last minute, never fear. We have some of the funniest, cutest and easiest ideas with our Last Minute DIY Halloween Costumes
Halloween Party Foods for a Crowd
1. Marshmallow Web Cupcake Topper
I had to get some cupcakes together quickly for my daughters Halloween class costume party, another Mom got sick and couldn’t do the cupcakes and I immediately volunteered because I had seen this idea the night before. I got my pre-made cupcakes from the bakery at HEB, I just asked that they be left bare so I could ice them at home. These cupcakes are covered in marshmallow “webbing” that is made by melting down mini marshmallows and using your fingers to stretch the gooey mixture over a HERSHEY’S Kiss topped chocolate frosted cupcake. The Kiss on top gives the shape of the frosting a somewhat sinister element with it’s delicious chocolate point. The kids went wild over them and my daughter’s teacher could not stop thanking me because the Halloween cupcakes looked so amazing.
2. Ghost Meringues
Meringues are so versatile, the kids and I wanted to make some little ghosts for Halloween so we studied up on it. Creating little ghost shapes is incredibly easy and each one will have its own unique shape making them even more fun! If you don’t have an icing bag with frosting tips, try using a large ZipLock bag and simply cut off the tip. This is also a great way for young kids to create Ghost Meringues, and they are cute as heck.
3. Halloween Candy Bark
Our Halloween costume party in a few weeks and we’ve invited our closest friends for a full day of Halloween fun and games, pumpkin decorating, and Halloween treats. This Halloween candy bark will definitely be among our party food table. It’s so easy to make and you can add just about anything you’d like to it. Bark candy is always my go-to blank canvas to add whatever holiday theme I need to. For this Halloween bark recipe I used Halloween OREOS (love the orange filling), sprinkles, pretzels to add a bit of salt to cut down the sweetness, mini edible eyes, and candy down in this fun orange, yellow and purple color. I like to use Ghirardelli melting chocolate because of the flavor and how easy it melts. The Ghirardelli melting wafers are smooth and easy to pour. For this recipe, you can make a small batch using one bag or fill a large baking sheet with two bags of chocolate wafers.
4. Creepy Halloween Eyeball Donuts
These eyeball donuts might be the easiest thing on this whole list, and they don’t even need an oven. Start with plain mini powdered donuts, then press a gummy Lifesaver into the center of each one so you’ve got a ring to work with. Drop an M&M right in the middle of that ring for the pupil, then pipe a few squiggly lines of red icing radiating out for the bloodshot look. The powdered sugar coating already reads as the white of the eye without any extra icing. My kids like picking their own M&M colors, so you end up with a whole tray of eyeballs that are all a little different, which honestly makes them creepier. Fun FoodCrafts has the full how-to for this one.
5. Halloween Marshmallow Pops
Marshmallow pops are one of those treats that look way more impressive than they actually are to make. This version comes with five different spooky faces, ghost, mummy, pumpkin, Frankenstein and a purple one with slicked back hair that’s basically begging to be called Dracula, so everyone at the party gets a design they like. You just dip jumbo marshmallows in melted white chocolate wafers tinted with food coloring and pipe on the details once they’ve set up a little. I’d melt the chocolate in small batches so it doesn’t harden on you before you’re done decorating. Kids can help with this one since there’s no oven involved, just melted candy and a steady hand for the faces.
6. Halloween Oreo Bats
Two chocolate wings and a pair of candy eyes turn a plain Oreo into a bat, and the reason these look sharp is that you don’t free-hand the wings. Jodi at Meaningful Mama slides a bat wing printable under parchment paper, then traces over it with melted dark chocolate from a squeeze bottle and fills it in like a coloring page, so every wing on the tray comes out the same shape. I’ve always loved to draw, and this is drawing with chocolate, so I’m fully on board. Park the squeeze bottle in a bowl of hot water between trays to keep the chocolate from setting inside it, and wipe the bottle dry before you pour, because a drop of water will seize melted chocolate on you. Read her note at the bottom before you start, too: if you want them standing up on straws for a display, dip the whole cookie instead of gluing the wings on.
7. Ghastly Candy Bark Recipe
Bark candy is one of the easiest things to make, you can melt your chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler and cool the layers as you go. Any holiday theme can be incorporated into bark because it is like a blank canvas it can reflect any holiday theme you choose. I wanted to give something homemade to my trick or treaters, so I drizzled white melted chocolate bark in ghost shapes all over my freshly made bark trays. The children went wild, we had such a good time.
8. Meatball Mummies Party Snack
These Meatball Mummies are a fun, easy, and delicious Halloween finger food idea. They are store-bought meatballs, wrapped in crescent down, and topped with marinara and olives. They are an excellent American appetizer, that only take about 30 minutes in total cooking time. They will look really spooky at your Halloween party and make an excellent alternative to Pizza.
9. Shredded Chicken And Rice Stuffed Peppers
I love my stuffed pepper recipe, we have these at least once every couple of weeks, so I decided to change them up to surprise the kids for Halloween. I thought of the idea of making little jack-o-lanterns out of the peppers when I saw some of the orange peppers on sale. It only takes a few extra minutes and it makes the stuffed peppers extra special. You can either make the slow cooker chicken as a meal one day (for tacos, burritos, taco salads etc.) and make extra to have these peppers later on, or you can make the chicken and rice just for the stuffed peppers. I slow cooked them in my crockpot and my kids were so amazed, they were so excited we took lots of photos.
10. Easy Witch’s Broomstick Snacks
My daughter had this fantastic idea to have an all witch Halloween party, so we wanted an appetizer that was very witchy to get us in the mood. These easy witch’s broomstick snacks are sure to be a big hit at any Halloween Party. The snacks are simple to assemble and when stood up fill a nice amount of space on a Halloween party buffet layout. I especially like that you can keep extras of the 3 ingredients needed and whip some more witch’s broomsticks together in the bat of a newts eye. As all good hosts know, being prepared is the most essential part of throwing a party after all.
11. Cauldron Cupcakes
Sure you could just frost a cupcake and call it Halloween, but why do that when you can build a whole bubbling cauldron instead? These start as devil’s food cupcakes baked and pressed into little plastic cauldron cups, then topped with a layer of neon green pudding and a scoop of green tinted rice krispie mix piled on so it looks like it’s boiling over the sides. It’s mostly assembly once the cupcakes cool, which makes it an easy one to hand off to kids for the messy part. I’d chill the cauldrons for a few minutes before adding the toppings so nothing slides around while you work.
12. Frankenstein Marshmallow Pops
Frankenstein always ends up being the easiest monster to pull off with marshmallows, honestly! These are big square marshmallows dipped in green candy melts, then dressed up with candy eyes, a black gel frosting mouth and mini Reese’s cups pressed in as ears before getting finished with a scatter of chocolate jimmies for hair. Sticking them on paper straws turns them into pops, so they’re easy to grab off a tray without anyone getting green candy melt on their fingers. I’d let the coating set for a minute before adding the eyes and ears so nothing slides out of place.
13. Incredible Candy Coated Halloween Popcorn
Do you have a bag of popcorn and some candy melts sitting around? That’s genuinely all you need for this one. The popcorn gets split into three bowls and coated separately in melted black, orange and green candy melts, then sprinkled with Halloween nonpareils and combined once everything’s set. It comes together fast since the whole thing is done in the microwave with no oven or stovetop involved. I’d spread each batch out on a lined baking sheet while it cools so the pieces don’t clump into one giant mass.
14. Eyeball OREO Truffles
The pupil is a black dot drawn onto an M&M with an edible ink pen, which is the small decision that turns a truffle into an eyeball. Lise at Mom Loves Baking crushes a whole package of Oreos, stirs them into softened cream cheese, rolls 1-inch balls and freezes them for 10 minutes before they go anywhere near the coating. Then comes the part I would underline twice: 3 to 4 tablespoons of coconut oil stirred into the melted white candy melts. Candy melts on their own set up thick and gloppy, and the oil thins the coating so it runs off the ball in a smooth shell instead of a lumpy one. I like knowing why a step works, and that one is just fat loosening the flow, no magic involved. She used Red Velvet Oreos so the inside matches the theme, though plain ones are fine and nobody is cutting these open anyway. Red frosting squiggles at the end do the bloodshot part, and they keep three days in the fridge.
15. White Chocolate Mummy Pretzels
There’s something about candy eyes that instantly makes any snack feel like a Halloween treat, and these mummy pretzels lean all the way into that. Pretzel snaps get dipped in melted white chocolate, drizzled back and forth to look like mummy wrappings, then topped with two candy eyeballs before the chocolate sets. It only takes a handful of ingredients and no baking, which makes it one of the easier treats on this list to pull together last minute. I’d add a splash of vegetable oil to the melted chocolate if it’s too thick to drizzle cleanly.
16. Pumpkin Cheesecake Halloween Dip
If you need a Halloween snack in an actual hurry, this pumpkin cheesecake dip comes together with just 5 ingredients in about 5 minutes, no oven required. It’s smooth and creamy and genuinely tastes like pumpkin cheesecake, which is exactly why it disappears fast at a party. A handful of black and orange Halloween sprinkles stirred or scattered on top turns a plain bowl of dip into something that actually looks like a seasonal treat. Graham crackers are the classic dipper here, but sliced apples or plain cookies work just as well if that’s what you’ve got in the pantry. It’s the kind of last-minute recipe I keep bookmarked for whenever a Halloween party sneaks up on me. Salt & Lavender has the full recipe.
17. Creepy Finger Sandwiches
Press your thumb into one end of each sandwich finger before the olive goes on. That little dent is what makes a halved black olive read as a fingernail instead of an olive sitting on bread. Leanna builds these from three things: extra thin sliced bread, olives and pimento cheese (homemade or the tub from the store, either one works), then cuts every sandwich into thirds or fourths so the pieces come out finger sized. Keep the filling creamy, because creamy is what glues the two slices together. Chicken salad is one of the things people ask me to make most, and it works here too. Just don’t build the tray early. The bread turns soggy, so assemble the day of and keep them cold until the doorbell goes. Leanna Myers at The Hungry Waitress has the recipe.
18. Strawberry Ghost Pops
Fruit in a costume, and the costume is one bar of white chocolate. Grace at Eats Amazing hulls a strawberry, pushes a cake pop stick into the pointy end, dips the whole berry in melted white chocolate and presses two candy eyes into the coating while it is still wet. Two things she does are the reason these work and I would not skip either one. The strawberries go into the fridge for a couple of hours first, because a cold berry sets the chocolate on contact instead of letting it run off. And the cut tops get blotted on kitchen paper, since strawberry juice and setting chocolate genuinely will not cooperate. There is always fruit in my house, several kinds of it, so I am biased toward any Halloween treat that is secretly produce. Her measurements are British, and 150g works out to a little over 5 ounces of white chocolate for 12 pops. Make these the day of the party, because strawberries do not wait.
19. Spooky Halloween Brownies
These spooky brownies start from a boxed mix, so don’t feel like you need to bake from scratch to pull this one off. The trick is topping the baked brownies with a simple ganache, which gives you a shiny, fudgy surface that candy eyes and gummy worms actually stick to. Crumbled chocolate cookies scattered over the top look exactly like dirt, which is the detail that sells the whole graveyard vibe. Once the ganache sets up, just push in as many candy eyes and worms as you want, there’s really no wrong way to place them. It’s a great one to hand to kids for the decorating part while the ganache is still soft enough to work with. The Baking ChocolaTess has the full recipe.
20. Candy Filled Cauldron Cookies
This is a pinata cookie, so the whole point arrives when somebody cracks it open and candy bones and eyeballs spill out onto the table. Beth at Hungry Happenings bakes two pieces, a flat cauldron shape and a thin round of dough draped over a cake ball pan so it bakes into a dome. The dome gets loaded with Halloween sprinkles, the cauldron goes on top like a lid and melted chocolate holds the two together. Her tell for doneness is better than any timer, by the way: chocolate cookies lose their sheen when they are ready. Watch for that and you will stop overbaking a dark dough you cannot judge by color. The flames are cut from a red, yellow and orange fruit roll and press onto the base without any chocolate at all, which sounds like cheating and looks like the opposite. I am the person who gets put on the decorating committee because everyone knows I will go overboard and never stop, so a cookie with a hidden compartment is aimed directly at me.
21. Monster Mash Popcorn
Slime green popcorn, and I do mean slime green, tossed with candy eyes, Halloween sprinkles and candy coated chocolates, with purple dipped pretzel sticks stirred through at the end. Lisa at Cooking with Curls mixes hers in a very large bowl, which matters more than it sounds like it should, because coating popcorn in a small bowl is how you end up wearing it. Her most useful note is a rescue: if the candy melts stall out and go thick on you, a little solid shortening stirred in will loosen them, but go a teaspoon at a time, because too much and the coating never firms up. Candy melts, candy eyes and Halloween sprinkles are all one Michaels run, and I know that store well enough to walk you to them faster than some of the employees, because I have tried almost all of it. As Halloween party snacks go, this one feeds a crowd, travels well and does not need a plate.
22. Halloween Monster Donuts
Store bought donuts, plastic vampire fangs, two M&Ms, done in five minutes. I keep Pillsbury pie crust and those heat up containers of rice in my kitchen and I am not embarrassed about either, so a monster built from a box of glazed donuts is very much my speed. Debbie at One Little Project worked out the one thing that decides whether this succeeds: use honey glazed donuts, not chocolate. She tried chocolate first and the fangs broke the donut apart, while the glazed ones flex enough to hold them. Pinch the fangs shut, push them into the hole and let them spring open in there, and the deeper you get them the better the whole thing reads. A dot of icing glues the eyes on, M side down, because glaze alone lets them slide. Wash the fangs first if they came out of a dollar store bin, and if little kids are eating these, she suggests gummy teeth in place of the plastic ones. Then put them back in the box and hand it to somebody.
23. Monster Cocktail Stirrers
Two supplies. Gummy candy and the wooden skewers you already own for grilling, and that is the entire list. Elsie at A Beautiful Mess threads hers starting at the top of the skewer and working down, which sounds like a nothing detail until you notice it means every new gummy covers the sticky patch the last one left behind. Gummy teeth, worms and eyeballs stack up into something that reads as a monster from across the room, and they sit in a glass looking exactly as unsettling as intended. I have volunteered to run the group craft at more events than I can count, and this is exactly what I look for: no heat, no timing, nothing that can go wrong. A kid can hand you a finished one before you have finished explaining it. Set out a jar of gummies and a cup of skewers and you have an activity and a garnish at the same time.
24. Easy Mummy Brownies
The mummy wrapping is white chocolate, piped back and forth across a brownie from a ziplock bag with one corner snipped off, which is the only piping bag most of us need. Jessica at Pretty Providence gets the candy eyes on while that chocolate is still soft, so it hardens around them and locks them in place. Two things will save you here. Cool the brownies in the freezer before you cut, because a cold brownie gives you clean straight edges and a warm one gives you a crumbly mess. And line the pan with parchment first so the whole slab lifts out in one piece, which is the fix she gives readers whose brownies stuck and fell apart. She counted 32 candy eyeballs for 12 brownies, so some of these come out with more eyes than a mummy strictly needs.
25. Haunted Haystacks
My family’s always been partial to no-bake treats around Halloween since the oven’s usually busy with something else. These haystacks melt chocolate candy melts and peanut butter together right in the crockpot, then get chow mein noodles stirred in until they’re fully coated before you scoop them onto a parchment lined sheet. Candy eyes pressed into the top before they set are what turns a basic haystack into a Halloween one. I’d keep the crockpot on low and stir halfway through so the peanut butter blends in evenly instead of sitting on top. They only need about an hour in the fridge to firm up, so they’re easy to make ahead of a party.
26. Spiderweb Cake
Here is why this one is worth the click even if you never bake it: Olivia at Liv for Cake published her own mistakes, four of them, numbered. She used too much orange gel color and it both kept darkening as it sat and thinned her buttercream. She did not chill the cake long enough, so once the web smudged she could not fix it. She started piping with no plan for where the webs would meet. And she thinks royal icing would have given smoother lines than buttercream. I have made enough things from other people’s instructions to know that not every published recipe works the way it reads, so a baker who tells you exactly where hers went sideways is worth ten who do not. Chill the cake a full two hours until the buttercream is genuinely firm and you have avoided most of it. The cake is black from black cocoa powder rather than gel coloring, which is a much better way to get there, and the orange buttercream tastes like a chocolate orange. One warning she gives free: the fake spiderweb draped around it snags on everything, so leave yourself time.
27. Easy Halloween Spider Pizza
Finally, something on this list that is dinner. Chantal at Nerdy Mamma builds her spiders out of olives, whole black ones for the bodies and thin slices fanned out for the legs, with green olives and cherry tomato slices filling in around them. Slice the toppings thinner than feels necessary, because thin slices lie flat and read as legs while thick ones just look like olives that fell over. Her dough uses rapid rise yeast and rests for five to ten minutes instead of an hour, and if you have bread flour, use it, since the extra protein is what gives you chew instead of cracker. I never hid vegetables from my kids the way the books tell you to. I made dessert conditional on the vegetables being eaten, and they eat vegetables to this day, so I am fully in favor of Halloween party food that puts the olives on top and dares somebody to complain. Give it the five minutes she says before you cut, so the cheese sets and the spiders stay where you put them.
28. Brownie Cupcakes
Two boxed mixes go into one cupcake liner here, and the ratio between them is the only part you can really get wrong. Nancy at Two Sisters Crafting spoons the brownie batter in first, only about a third of the way up the liner, then covers it with white cake batter tinted orange until the liner’s about three quarters full. Fifteen to twenty minutes at 350 and the dome bounces back when you press it. Add more cake batter than that and it runs over the rim, so leave the extra in the bowl and get two more cupcakes out of it. Use the egg whites only directions on the cake mix box if you want the loudest orange. And her note about the liners is the one I’d write down: cool them all the way, then leave the paper on until right before you serve, because a naked cupcake dries out fast.
29. Witch Finger Pretzel Rods
Angie dips each pretzel rod in melted green candy and leaves a couple of inches bare at the bottom so there’s somewhere to hold on. Then the sliced almond, and this is the one step with timing to it: set it on the coated tip right away, while the green is still soft, or the fingernail won’t stick at all. If the melts come out too thick to dip, a little coconut oil thins them. She stands the finished fingers up in a white popcorn box lettered BOO, with buttons and googly eyes standing in for the O’s, and standing is the right call, because a witch finger lying flat on a platter is just a green pretzel. Fifteen minutes, start to finish. Angie Holden at The Country Chic Cottage has the recipe.
30. Rice Krispy Treat Brains
Spray the knife, not just your hands. Anne at Left Brain Craft Brain tints the melted butter and marshmallow red, stirs in 6 cups of Rice Krispies, then scoops about a quarter cup at a time, rolls it, flattens it slightly and presses a crease down the middle so it reads as a brain, and every one of those steps goes easier with a coat of nonstick spray. Once they’ve cooled, red gel icing drizzled into the folds is what takes them from pink lump to genuinely unsettling, and that’s the one place I’d go heavier than feels polite. A batch makes 12 to 16 in about 20 minutes. They only keep a day or two in an airtight container, so this is a make-them-the-morning-of situation, not a night before one.
31. Caramel Apples
Confession: I love a caramel apple that isn’t trying to be anything fancier than a caramel apple. This one starts with chilled apples on a stick, then gets dipped in a homemade caramel you cook on the stove until it hits the soft ball stage on a candy thermometer, no shortcuts with store bought caramel here. Once it’s dipped, a drizzle of chocolate and a scatter of crushed nuts or pretzels finishes it off before the caramel fully sets. I’d chill the apples in the freezer first since a cold apple helps the caramel grip and set faster. Give yourself the full hour this one takes since the caramel needs real stovetop time to reach temperature.
32. Apple Peanut Butter Teeth
Cut apples go brown in about the time it takes to answer the door, and that’s the only thing that ever goes wrong with this one. Robin at Mom Foodie has the fix, and it isn’t the lemon juice trick everybody reaches for: soak the slices in a saline solution, 1 teaspoon of salt in 2 cups of water, for 10 minutes, then rinse them and pat them dry. After that it’s just assembly. Spread a teaspoon or two of peanut butter on each slice, line mini marshmallows along one of them like a row of teeth, press a second slice on top, and you’ve got a grin. It’s one of the few Halloween party snacks on this list that’s mostly fruit, and the marshmallows do enough sweet talking that nobody notices.
33. Spooky Black Caramel Apples
If the stovetop caramel apples earlier in this list sound like more standing around than you’ve got in you, this homemade caramel is made in the microwave and the whole thing takes about 10 minutes. Corn syrup, water and sugar go into a heatproof bowl for 5 to 7 minutes, until the mixture boils and turns light amber, then heavy cream, salt, vanilla, 2 to 3 teaspoons of black food coloring and butter get stirred in until it’s smooth. Dip and tilt to coat, hold the apple stick up for 10 to 15 seconds so the extra runs off, then flip it stick down for another 15 to 20 before it goes on parchment. Chill them 30 to 60 minutes to set and they’ll hold a day ahead. Rachel’s note on why caramel slides off an apple is worth reading twice: either the caramel was too hot, or the apple had a wax coating on it. That one sentence explains most of the caramel apple disasters I’ve ever heard about.
34. Creepy Brain Dip
Fair warning, this brain is a dessert. The red center is a red velvet cake batter dip, the wrinkles piped on top are homemade cream cheese frosting, and you scoop it up with ladyfingers, which look enough like little bones to earn their place on the plate. The trick that makes it look bloody is the best part: before you fill the piping bag, paint streaks of red food coloring down the inside of it with a small brush or a butter knife, so the color drags out along the frosting as you pipe. Chrisy pipes front to back, one line straight down the middle first, then squiggles filling in each side. Two things she’s right about that I wouldn’t skip. Chill the filled bag 30 minutes so the frosting holds its shape, and bake the dry cake mix on a sheet pan for 5 minutes at 350 before it goes anywhere near the bowl, because raw flour is still raw flour.
35. Monster Pumpkin Pudding
Nothing about this one needs a recipe so much as an assembly line. Pumpkin spice pudding goes in the cup, torn up brownie goes in the middle, more pudding goes on top, and then marshmallows with chocolate sauce dotted on for pupils sit on the surface staring back at you. Parenting Chaos used an instant pumpkin pudding for this batch and points you to a homemade pumpkin spice pudding if you’d rather make it from scratch. Use a clear cup, though. The whole point is that brownie layer showing through the middle, and in an opaque cup you’ve just made a nice pudding nobody can see. I’d tear the brownies instead of cutting them, too, since the ragged edges look better against the glass than a clean square does.
36. Easy Green Halloween Pasta
The pasta comes out green because the water does. Two good tablespoons of green food coloring go into the pot along with the salt, 5 quarts of water per pound of pasta, and then you cook it exactly how you always do, stirring in the first minute or two so the strands don’t glue themselves together. More dye, darker pasta. Spaghetti is the right shape for this, creepier and crawlier than rotini or ziti, and the coloring doesn’t change the taste at all, so top it however you normally would. A red marinara over green spaghetti is the entire Halloween joke in one plate, and sliced olives and small meatballs turn it into a monster for the kids. If I’m honest, this is the rare Halloween recipe on the list that’s actually dinner.
37. Toxic Waste Mac N’ Cheese
I have opinions about macaroni and cheese, and the main one is that it should start with a roux, which this one does. Butter and flour cook together a minute or two, then whole milk, dry mustard, onion powder, paprika and a pinch of cayenne. Eight ounces of grated sharp white cheddar goes in off the heat, once the pan is off the burner. Lisa picked white cheddar on purpose, since it takes green food coloring far better than orange cheese would, and medium shells instead of elbows so the whole thing looks lumpy and wrong. Thawed spinach goes in, then the pasta, then steamed cauliflower last and barely stirred, so the florets sit near the top like foam. I never hid vegetables from my kids, and this isn’t hiding them either, it’s putting them in a costume. Twenty five minutes, start to finish. If you copy her painted paint can, serve out of a bowl set down inside it rather than against a liner.
38. How to Make Ghost Pretzels
Three ingredients, and one of them is candy eyes. Mini pretzel twists get dipped in melted vanilla candy coating, and then Trish Sutton at Kenarry pokes the bottom hole open again with a straw so every ghost ends up with a little round shocked mouth. That one poke is the whole trick. A dot of the melted coating in the two top holes holds the eyes on, and 15 to 20 minutes in the fridge sets the tray. Pile them into a skull mug the way she did and the snack doubles as the centerpiece. I worked in a few restaurants in college and spent most of that time watching the chefs, and what stuck with me is how much of a dish is simply how it looks. A pretzel with a face on it lands on the table as one of those Halloween party snacks everyone points at. A plain dipped pretzel just gets eaten.
39. Halloween Brownies
Browned butter is the step most people skip when they bake brownies from scratch, and it’s the one that actually makes these taste homemade instead of like a boxed mix. It’s a fudgy brownie built on browned butter, baking chocolate and cocoa, topped before baking with Halloween M&Ms, sprinkles, candy corn and candy eyeballs pressed right into the batter. Don’t rush the butter since it needs a few minutes on the stove to go from foaming to that light amber color that gives the whole pan its flavor. I’d pull them as soon as a toothpick along the edge comes out with just a few crumbs, since that’s what keeps them fudgy instead of dry.
40. Mummy Nutter Butters
These mummy cookies start with a bag of regular Nutter Butters, so there’s no baking and no cookie dough involved at all. Dip each one in melted white chocolate, then drizzle more melted chocolate back and forth over the top in messy lines to look like mummy wrappings, leaving a gap for two candy eyes to peek through. The peanut butter cookie underneath all that white chocolate tastes a little like a crunchy white chocolate Reese’s cup, which is why these disappear fast off the tray. They set up firm in about 15 minutes in the fridge, so it’s an easy one to knock out between other party prep. On My Kids Plate has the full recipe.
41. Spooky Deviled Eggs
Not gonna lie, the sriracha drizzle on these is what sells the whole spooky eye effect. The filling gets tinted green with food coloring, piped back into the egg whites, then topped with a candy eyeball and a few drops of hot sauce dragged down the side so it looks like the eye is bleeding. It’s a savory option for a table that’s usually all sugar, which makes it stand out more at a party than another dessert would. I’d go easy on the hot sauce if you’re serving these to kids since it’s there for looks as much as flavor, a light drizzle reads just as spooky as a heavy one.
42. Halloween Oreo Truffles
These Oreo truffles are as simple as crushed Oreos mixed with cream cheese, rolled into balls, then dipped in melted chocolate to set. What makes them feel like a real Halloween treat is entirely in the decorating, Amanda shows three different toppings so you can mix black, orange and purple sprinkles across one tray instead of making every truffle match. They’re a no-bake recipe, which makes them an easy one to make ahead and just pull from the fridge the day of a party. Kids can help with the rolling and the dunking both, so it’s a good one to hand off if you want a few extra hands in the kitchen. Amanda’s Cookin’ has the full recipe.
43. Frankenstein Kiwis
The fuzzy skin you’d normally peel off is the hair. Slice one end off a kiwi so it stands up flat, then peel the bottom two thirds with a vegetable peeler and tear the last third away in jagged bits, and your monster has a hairline. A half inch piece of pretzel stick pushed in sideways is the mouth, two more half inch pieces low on each side are the neck bolts, and two mini chocolate chips or dried blueberries are the eyes. Seven minutes for one. There’s always fruit in my house, kiwi included, so an easy Halloween treat that’s fruit plus three pieces of pretzel is my kind of trade. One thing on timing from Shelley: the kiwis hold up in the fridge for hours, but the pretzels go soft after one or two, so put the mouths and bolts in close to party time.
44. Pumpkin Rice Krispie Treats
When a treat skips the pan and the cutting into squares, I’m already halfway sold, and these pumpkin rice krispie balls seal the deal. Melted marshmallows get tinted orange with red and yellow food coloring, mixed with the cereal, then scooped and shaped by hand into round pumpkins with a broken pretzel rod pressed in as the stem and a green M&M for the leaf. If the mixture feels too sticky to shape, a quick ten minutes in the fridge firms it up enough to roll without it sticking to your hands. Buttering your hands first also keeps the cereal from sticking while you’re shaping them.
45. Chocolate Pretzel Spider Webs
This one is built the way a real web is, from the middle out: nine pretzel sticks in a circle like spokes, then melted chocolate piped from the center in rings that grow until they hit the tips. What I’d want to know going in is that the chocolate is also the glue, so every ring has to cross every pretzel or the web falls apart when you peel it off the paper. Kristin melts half the chips at a time, which is right, since a piping bag stiffens while you’re being precious about your circles. Snap four sticks in half for mini webs, with a gummy spider in the big ones and gummy bears in the minis, looking properly caught. It’s one of the Halloween party snacks here a kid can build start to finish instead of just decorating. Kristin Porter at Iowa Girl Eats has the recipe.
46. Dry Ice Halloween Charcuterie Board
Drill holes through the serving board and the dry ice sits under the food instead of in it. It goes into lidded containers underneath, and the fog comes up through the holes and rolls off the edge. Above the board it’s a graveyard: a gate arch, wrought iron fencing, crows and tombstone signs, all hot glued down, with cheddar, crackers, marcona almonds, olives, salami roses and Medjool dates labeled Zombie Dates filling in around it. Wear thick insulated gloves and use tongs, because dry ice gives you frostbite fast. This is the only one of these Halloween party snacks that sends you to the garage for a drill, and I own three toolboxes, so I am the wrong person to ask if that is too far. Delineate Your Dwelling has the how-to, and the board is Jesse Scott’s build.
47. Halloween Bundt Cake
The payoff on this one is the first slice. A box of white cake mix gets divided, 1 cup each tinted orange, purple and black and everything left over tinted green, then poured into a greased 12 cup bundt pan one color at a time and left completely alone. No stirring, no swirling. That’s the whole technique, and it’s the reason the stripes stay sharp instead of turning into mud. Bake at 325, cool in the pan 5 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack set over a cookie sheet for about half an hour before the frosting goes on, four colors of it, each microwaved a few seconds so it drizzles. Gel coloring beats liquid here by a mile. I keep good cake pans that get used for cake and nothing else, and a bundt is where that pays off, so grease it generously with a baking spray that has flour in it or the pattern stays in the pan.
48. Spooky Halloween 7 Layer Dip
This layered dip is the same seven layer dip you already know, just dressed up for Halloween with one simple trick, a piped spiderweb. Layer refried beans mixed with taco seasoning, sour cream, salsa, shredded cheese, guacamole, diced tomatoes, green onions and sliced olives the way you normally would, then pipe thin lines of sour cream over the guacamole layer in a web pattern and drag a toothpick through them to pull the lines into points. A few plastic spiders pushed into the dip finish the look in about thirty seconds. It only takes a handful of minutes to put together, so it’s an easy one to send along with your kids to a school party you forgot about until the last minute. Six Sisters’ Stuff has the full recipe.
49. Jack-O'-Lantern Fruit Cups
These pumpkin fruit cups start with the plain orange fruit cups you can grab at any grocery store, mandarin oranges, peaches or orange jello all work. Cut a green pipe cleaner in half, fold about an inch over into a loop for the stem, then curl the rest around a pencil for a little vine, and hot glue it to the lid. From there you can draw a jack-o-lantern face right on the lid with a black Sharpie, or cut one from black vinyl with a Cricut if you want it to look extra polished. It’s a genuinely healthy option to send in for a school Halloween party, which is not something you can say about most of this list. That’s What Che Said has the full how-to, with three different ways to put these together.
50. Pumpkin Cheese Ball
Heads up before you click: this one is not mac and cheese and it is not in cups. The tutorial that used to sit here is gone from the web, so the spot goes to a different pumpkin, a savory cheese ball molded into one. Sara at Dinner at the Zoo blends cream cheese, butter, finely grated sharp cheddar and smoked paprika, wraps the ball in plastic, then stretches wide rubber bands around it in two rounds, and those bands are what press the pumpkin ribs into the sides while it chills. Two hours later they come off, the ball gets rolled in crushed cheese crackers for the orange skin, and a green bell pepper stem goes on top. Grate the cheddar yourself. Pre-shredded cheese is coated so it won’t clump in the bag, and that coating keeps it from blending smoothly into the cream cheese. I’d rather graze all evening than sit down to a plate, so one savory thing on a table of Halloween candy earns its keep, and this one holds in the fridge for a week.
