*This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase an item from a link on this post, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra cost to you!
Halloween Party Food
When I was prepping for my middle man’s Halloween Birthday bash I searched a lot of Halloween party ideas on Pinterest and Google. If you do the same, you’ll find that there are several different types of Halloween party. One of those is the nasty/gross type. My son loves Halloween, but Halloween to him is about fun ghosts and pumpkins – not gross gory weird stuff! Maybe that’s why I have not really ever been into Halloween.
I haaaaate the gross stuff. Like a lot. But helping him celebrate the holiday 365 has reminded me that it does not have to be disgusting or even scary (though we do like stuff to be a little bit “spooky”). There is a lot about Halloween that is just fun and silly. So these Halloween food ideas are a small sample of the fun and silly side of Halloween, all approved by the 3 year old man of the hour for his Halloween birthday party.
Prep Ahead!
Some of the foods here are special treats that require preparation ahead of time. Others are literally foods you dump out and set a label on. My kids love coming up with silly names for regular foods for their parties – and I’m not complaining because that’s one less thing I have to make. I like to have fun foods for any party, but I hate when I’m in the kitchen after everything has started still trying to get everything ready. We’ll get started with the ones that require a bit of prep ahead of time – and then finish up with the dump and go! I’ll share my food labels too at the end of the post, so if you want to print those off for use at your party feel free!
Before Party Day:
We were able to knock out several of the food items before party day. Which was super helpful because I had to clean my house (ish) on party day and make big boy’s cake the day before, so I did not have time to be making a bunch of stuff.
Eyeball Bites –
AKA Cake mix cookies with eyeball sprinkles. These bad boys were a party hit with the kids. There were one or two left, and my children argued over who would get the last eyeball. (They split it, and I got another sprinkle from the cabinet. Because I had them, and why not.) These were made the afternoon before the party and stored in a plastic container overnight. I had never made cake mix cookies before, but they are like crazy easy. If you are needing colored cookies, I would definitely recommend these over sitting there squeezing in dye to your mix. I used this mix:
And I must admit it was a little weird when the “Vibrant Green” cake mix came out blue. Where is the yellow?! We need green! Anyway the most popular cake mix cookie recipe on the Internet (no stats to back this up, it’s the first one when you search Google) calls for 2 eggs and 1/2 cup oil. So I dumped in 1/2 cup of oil. Then I had the thought… “That was not a lot of cake mix…” Turns out these tiny packages are NOT 18.25 oz standard cake mixes. More like 9. Soooo I now had double the oil in my mix.
We did not have another mix, I’d already poured in 1/2 cup, so I figured it was worth 1 egg to try and salvage this stuff. So I carefully spooned out 1/4 cup of now green oil and just tried my best to not get too many cake mix bits out too. In went the egg, and I mixed ’em up, scooped ’em out, and baked at 350 for about 5-7 minutes. I did some with the “eyeball” before baking, some I stuck it on after – because there’s no info out there about when to add the eyeball to your cookie, and I didn’t know. Turns out I liked the “add the eyeball before” cookies better. The boys loved them.
Monster Spit
AKA Water. My 5 year old was super excited about his “Wartortle Water” at his Pokemon party, and really wanted to name the water for his brother’s party. We came up with Monster Spit (though later my husband said he thought Monster Slobber was better… but it was too late.) I had the labels printed off on cardstock, cut them into strips, then my awesome husband put them on the water bottles with clear packing tape.
We didn’t even bother to remove the original bottle labels beforehand, because it honestly seemed pointless. I want my kids’ parties to be great, but I’m not trying to spend 3 hours replacing labels on water bottles. We have not tried this method with bottles in a cooler, so I don’t know if the ink would bleed from the melting ice or not. They hold up really well in the fridge though! Scroll to the bottom of the post for the printable water label if you like!
Spooky Ghosts
AKA String Cheese. My son loves string cheese, so when I came across this idea I knew we had to have it. These were so easy. I used a sharpie, and drew on some circle ghost faces. Hardest part of these was just tearing apart the cheese sticks and praying that the tear wouldn’t go crazy and accidentally open them!
Jack-O-Lanterns
AKA Mandarin Oranges. Do y’all love these as much as we do? I get frustrated when I accidentally pick up a bag that are not the easy peel ones, and even the easy peel ones I have to peel for my kids, but when these are good, they’re good. This one was also a simple draw-on. I used a food writer instead of a sharpie because I wasn’t sure how permeable an orange peel was. These stumped a dad at the party for a minute! He said he had to do a double take to figure out what I was serving!
Worm Food
AKA Pudding with Oreos and Gummy worms. This was just a classic dirt-and-worms dessert scooped into cups! One of my all time favorite desserts. Mix chocolate pudding (according to package) and incorporate with a package of cream cheese that has been beaten with 1/2 cup of sugar. Fold in a container of Cool Whip, and the pudding is done! The ‘dirt’ is just Oreos that have gone through the chopper. I did wait until party day to top the pudding with the dirt and worms.
On Party Day
These are the things I did on the day of the party. Nearly all of them were “dump and go.”
Mummies
AKA Hotdogs wrapped in crescent rolls! I opened a can of crescents, pressed the perforated edges closed, then cut little strips with a pizza cutter. After that I took the strips, wrapped one per hotdog, and baked according to the crescent roll package. These were more of a hit than I could have imagined at the party. The kids loved this one!!
Creepy Carrots
AKA Carrots, Cauliflower, and Broccoli. This one was for the non-junk eaters (yes we have those!) It was super easy to do, and I used olives for the jack-o-lantern features. Done in a flash. We almost always have a veggie tray anyway, so it was crazy easy to just dump them in a pumpkin shape.
Zombie Eyes
AKA Grapes. That’s right. I just poured some grapes on a plate. The sign did the work.
And last but not least,
Pumpkin Skins
AKA Nacho Cheese Doritos. My 5 year old came up with this one and was so proud. I loved it. Another dump and go item with a clever name.
The Cake
My son requested a “pumpkin with sprinkles” for his birthday cake, so I delivered on that. This cake was incredibly easy to do. Read more here about how I put it together!
The food for your party does not have to be 100% homebaked and difficult. Planning a party is hard work, especially if it’s at your house that you’re trying to clean too! Feel free to use my food labels for personal use only! Hopefully they can make your party planning a little bit easier!
