I’m not sure why I love a Halloween party, but I do and these fun and festive menu ideas will help you celebrate the holiday without being too spooky. If you are looking for a family-friendly Halloween party menu then keep on scrolling. I’ve got a line up of some fun menu items we are going to have later this month as well as a review of past family Halloween festivities.
When it comes to Halloween, you can lean as far as you want towards gory or lean the opposite direction toward harvest and autumn. Halloween and Valentine’s fall in a similar bucket for me. I want to celebrate what I can, when and while I can. So basically, it’s an excuse to try new foods, make fun memories and invite people to your table.
This year, your invite list might not look as long, but don’t let that keep you from doing something. Even if you are boycotting door-to-door visiting, set out some treats for the neighbor’s kids, and plan a family game night with a to-go pizza. Remember when it comes to making family memories, this year we are just looking for something fun to do! So, whether it’s a close group of friends, the neighbor, your church small group, or family who lives close, try something fun and be intentional about doing things a little different.
Halloween Party Theme Ideas
- Halloweenies
- Soups On
- Spooky Snacks
- Ghouls Night Out
- Theme menu to match kids costumes
- Bring your Mummy
- Pizza and Pickin (ie, exchange all the candy)
- Crocktober
- Pink Party
Halloweenies – my mom always does this with her 3-year-olds. It’s just hot dogs or hot dogs wrapped in breadstick dough. nothing crazy, but you
Soups On – this is great when Halloween is on a weekend. Invite friends over to join you at a cabin or outdoor space and everyone comes after trick or treating and brings a pot of soup, stew, or chili. Do a costume parade and let everyone just hang out!
Spooky Snacks – just hit Pinterest for all the ideas. I’m not really into gory or weird textures, but there are so many ideas out there for worms and edible blood type things.
Ghouls Night Out – get your gal pals together and watch a scary or silly movie. Make some of the fun snacks listed below and make a memory. I was a single adult in my 30s and Halloween is an interesting holiday if you don’t have kids and are past your college days. Again, remember its just an excuse to get together and make a memory.
Kid’s costume theme – just roll with it. Use ideas you would for a birthday party of that theme and move ahead. My Little Man is going to be a cowboy, so there may be some beef stew on the menu to keep it easy for mama.
Bring your Mummy – this is a great theme for a lunch date with your kid’s friends and moms. Maybe you are part of a mom group already or need an excuse to get people together. You could also do this with a Sunday School class or neighbor group as a Halloween tea. Or, do all the mummy meal ideas and do the toilet paper wrap game, it seems the stores have caught back up!
Pizza and Pickin’ – this makes it easy on mama and keeps eyes open to the candy exchange that always happens when kids get back from trick or treating. Make sure you tell them to pay the “parent tax” and find out where they put their candy before going to bed so you can raid the stash!
Crocktober – I talked about this a couple of weeks ago on the blog. Put your favorite comfort food in the Slow Cooker or have people bring a pot of something – dips, soups, main courses, hot chocolate or cider, and don’t forget desserts like chocolate lava cake or cobbler.
Pink Party – you know I’m all about the cancer causes and October is a great time to celebrate something different than Halloween and that’s Cancer Warriors. Check out some of these items I did for a Bunko Pink Party – pink pasta with ribbon breadsticks or snacks like cranberry meatballs, pink dip, campfire marshmallows in pink chocolate, and of course strawberry cake. Let’s hear it for the girls.
Fun Halloween Party Menu Items
- all the soups – if you are going trick or treating or attending something festive, throw soup in the crockpot and make it easy on yourself with no extra cooking
- wrap hot dogs with breadstick or crescent roll dough and leave holes so it looks like a mummy
- Mummy pizzas – use English muffins or tortillas to make pizzas. Add pizza sauce and toppings and use string cheese to make mummy patterns across the top.
- guacamole with sour cream on top like a spider web
- Graveyard Pudding Pie
- Candy Bar Cake – recipe below, but this may also be something fun to make after Halloween to use up some of that candy. Just make sure you pull the good stuff before they eat it all…Don’t they call that the parent tax?
- Anything with pumpkin in it, especially those savory dishes. My friend Shay has a ton of pumpkin recipes and I”ve been excited to try Megan’s One Pot Sausage and Pumpkin Pasta and this pumpkin pie dip.
- roasted red pepper soup and witch finger breadsticks. Use a canned pizza crust dough and use your pizza cutter to cut it into finger-sized breadsticks. Twist or bend them so they look like crooked fingers and add an almond to one end for a fingernail. Sprinkle the tops with a little parmesan cheese and cracked pepper.
- Ghost Smores Dip – 1 package of chocolate chips in the bottom of a pie plate or iron skillet, cover with ghost peeps, and bake. Serve with graham crackers
- Jack-o-lantern quesadillas – Place a tortilla on a cookie sheet or baking stone, sprinkle with cheese, Cut faces out of one tortilla to resemble a jack o lantern. Place on top of the cheese. Bake in the oven. This is a great activity for preschoolers to work on shapes.
- Monster Cookies – take a great chocolate chip cookie recipe and change out the chocolate chips for M&Ms. when the cookies come out press in a few eyeball sprinkles.
- Spooky Party punch – make a Mexican sunset punch or green goblin punch.
- Of course, set a theme to match your kid’s costume – cowboys might like Beef Stew or a Princess might like a tea party. You may have to get really creative beyond that, but we have had a Ghouls Night Out with a little chicken and last year’s taco party with the GuacStar avocado.
This candy bar cake is so good and while I always love having Graveyard Pudding Pie, Its really hard to not want this too. But hey, you can wait and make this next week with all the kids leftover candy!
Candy Bar Cake Bars
Ingredients
- 1 Dark Fudge Chocolate Cake Mix
- 1 stick butter melted
- 4 eggs use separately
- 8 ounce pkg cream cheese softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 4 Cups powdered sugar
- 1 Cup Rolos cut in half (could substitute or combine milky way, Snickers, Reeces Cups, mint patties, etc.)
- 12 roughly chopped/broken Oreo cookies
- ½ Cup M&M’s could substitute with Reece’s pieces
- Colored sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a stand mixer, beat together cake mix, melted butter, and 2 eggs.
- Spray the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.
- Press the cake mixture into the bottom of the baking dish. Making sure to press up the sides a tiny bit to make a crust edge.
- (Tip: wet your fingers as you press the cake mixture in the bottom and you can get an even spread)
- Wash out the mixing bowl.
- In a stand mixer, beat together the cream cheese, vanilla, and 2 eggs.
- Slowly mix in the powdered sugar.
- Remove the bowl from the mixer and hand stir in 3/4th of the roughly chopped cookies and candies, saving the M&M’s and sprinkles for the end.
- Pour cream cheese mixture on top of the crust.
- Cook for 30-40 minutes or until cream cheese mixture is set and edges are browning.
- Remove from oven and scatter top with remaining cookies, candy, M&M’s and festive sprinkles.
- Press candies in a little and candies will melt into the topping.
- Let cool before serving.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
Safari party – butter or chocolate cake mix on the bottom and black and white candies for toppings
Valentines – strawberry or red velvet cake bottom and coordinating candies
Halloween – chocolate, funfetti Halloween, or orange cake bottom and mix up with all kinds of favorite candy and eyeball sprinkles One suggestion is if you use peanut butter flavored candy, it will take over everything. I would suggest focusing on that flavor or leaving it out.
What’s on your Halloween menu? And, if you use any of these ideas, post on social media and tag me in your post! @bigpittstop
pin this for later and plan to make it for all your kids parties!
