Halloween is a great time of year to get creative with food – whether it be a fun Halloween meal or ideas of spooky treats for a party. Making food fun can be a great way to add magic to Halloween celebrations on October 31. Here’s our guide to the best ideas for Halloween kids food
Savoury Spooky Snacks: Mummy Hot Dogs
Make sausages into mummies (the Egyptian kind!) by wrapping pre rolled puffed pastry around sausages or hot dogs. The key with this one is to add gaps for the “eyes”, which can be added afterwards with dollops of ketchup, mustard or your preferred hot dog sauce. Use dairy-free pastry and vegan sausages for dairy allergies or vegan diets. To make this gluten-free, use gluten-free rolls and pastry. Check sausages for gluten too.
Monster Pizzas
All you need is pizza bases to build your own monster faces. Buy pre-made or make your own. Add tomato sauce and cheese, then add your toppings. Olive slices or pepperoni can be great for eyes, pepper strips make good mouths and mushrooms are a good option for spooky shapes. Other things that work as bases for fun Halloween faces include pancakes, muffins or cakes. You can use vegan cheese and non-meat ingredients to cater for vegan diets and buy or make non-gluten bases for gluten-free diets.
Pumpkin Quesadillas
Who knew tortilla wraps could be made fun? Use them to cut in pumpkin faces. Fill with cheese and cook for cheese to ooze out of the gaps, making this dish super spooky. Salsa could be renamed blood and guts or guacamole monster goo for dipping.
Fruity Snacks For Kids This Halloween
Halloween is often time for a lot of sugar. If you’re trying to keep things more fresh and healthy, try these ideas.
Banana Ghosts: Slice bananas in half and make them into ghosts. Chocolate chips are good for faces here and squirty cream can be a fun addition.
Clementine Pumpkins: These little oranges can double up as mini pumpkins. Use cucumber or celery to replicate the stem.
Monster Apples: Slice apples into wedges and decorate and dip with peanut butter. Use sunflower for kids who are nut-free. Mini marshmallows make fabulous ‘teeth’. A strawberry slice is a good fruity ‘tongue’.
Kids Halloween Party Food Ideas
We’ve rounded up the best crowd-pleasers if you’re putting on a Halloween party for kids.
Witch’s Broomsticks: Use pretzel sticks as broom handles and attach strings of cheese to look like broom bristles.
Pumpkin Devilled Eggs: Make devilled eggs as usual, then sprinkle with paprika and use chive stems as pumpkin ‘stalks’.
Eyeball Pasta: A mozzarella decorated with an olive slice is a fab way to create an ‘eyeball’. Alternatively, meatballs might become cooked ‘eyeballs’ in a fun and gruesome pasta dish.
Saucy dishes and different pastas can be renamed all sorts of spooky things for Halloween. Think brains, blood, guts and gore. If your kids like that sort of thing!
Sweet treats for kids at Halloween
Spider web cupcakes: Using melted chocolate or black icing to make spiders webs on top of white iced cupcakes. There are so many ways you can decorate cakes or biscuits with Halloween shapes or making Halloween faces to make them fun for Halloween.
Frankenstein Rice Krispy Cakes: Use food colouring – we suggest green here to tint the marshmallow mix for rice krispy cakes and make them extra Halloween-y.
Pumpkin Rice Cakes: Use simple rice cakes to make pumpkin faces, with orange spread or peanut butter, coloured cream cheese or frosting and then decorate. Get creative with chocolate chips, sultanas, fruit and sliced vegetables such as cucumbers for sweet or savory treats. Rice cakes provide a great blank canvas for all sorts of fun Halloween faces including witches, animals or monsters. Other foods that can be fun to decorate as digestive biscuits, shop bought Scotch pancakes or even slices of toast. Let your creative spirit run free.
Edible Crafts
Decorate biscuits or cupcakes with icing and sprinkles. You can buy Halloween-themed decorations from the shops if you have the budget. Chocolate fingers can make great ‘fingers’ or witches finger biscuits are a fun option for different shapes.
Again monster faces can be assembled with all different edible materials, including on toast and in sandwiches. Olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and different spreads can provide fun combinations to get messy and have fun.
Halloween popcorn: Get creative with toppings. Could salt be monster dandruff, pretzels, witches broomsticks and marshmallows ghosts or eyeballs.
Pumpkin-based foods
Use the seasonal ingredient: pumpkins to try out soups, pies, cakes, muffins and pancakes. There are many recipes online and the scooped out pumpkin from carving can be used to avoid waste. Pumpkin can also be cooked as a side vegetable and may be a great opportunity for your kid to try something new.
To cook pumpkin, start by cutting it in half and scooping out the seeds and stringy pulp. Slice into wedges or chunks, then choose your method: roasting (toss with oil and bake at 200°C/400°F for 25 to 35 minutes until tender), boiling/steaming (cook peeled cubes for 10 to 15 minutes until soft), or microwaving (place chunks in a covered dish with a little water, cook 10 minutes). Once cooked, scoop out the flesh or mash it.
Pumpkin Muffins for Kids
These soft, lightly spiced muffins are a great way to get kids enjoying pumpkin!
Ingredients:
- 250g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 200g pumpkin purée (fresh or canned)
- 100g sugar (or coconut sugar)
- 2 eggs
- 80ml vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method:
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F and line a muffin tray with cases.
- In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and spices.
- In another bowl, whisk pumpkin purée, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla.
- Combine wet and dry mixtures, then spoon into muffin cases.
- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden and springy.
Halloween Drinks for Kids
Witch’s Brew: Apple juice, lemonade, and a splash of sparkling water. You can add gummy worms to float on top.
‘Bloody” Berry Smoothies: Blend together strawberries, raspberries and yogurt and pretend it’s something gory.
Monster Milkshakes: Make chocolate or vanilla milkshakes, tint with food colouring, and top with whipped cream and candy eyes.
