10 Unique Snacks You and Your Kids Will Love on Halloween
My kids love almost everything about Halloween. Each year we do all the traditional holiday favorites:
Go on a hayride
We (I) carve pumpkins
Go to a (kid-friendly) haunted house
Listen to silly ghost stories and jokes on our smart speaker
Watch movies and cartoon specials
And of course, we go Trick-or-Treating!
Getting candy any time of the year is great, but on Halloween it's special. Trick-or-Treating is a great holiday tradition. I love seeing all the kids dressed up as monsters, superheroes, and cartoon characters.
Sometimes I even wear a costume or wig when I escort my kids around the neighborhood. We almost always come home with a lot of candy!
(I say "we" because my wife and I eat a lot of it when they go back to school! - shhh!)
Last year, Trick-or-Treating fell on a Saturday. So when they got off the school bus that Friday, I anticipated the excitement (and impatience). I surprised them with a special Halloween-themed snack dinner.
And… wait for it… it was mostly healthy. I say “mostly” because, let’s face it, it’s Halloween and we all enjoy (and expect) some candy.
I came up with a lot of food ideas that I could turn into holiday treats for the family. I stopped at ten though, mostly because I ran out of time before they got home, but also, I know how much food my family can eat.
They loved it so much, we did it again this year!
Read on to find out how you can surprise your family too!
Set the stage. Decorate the table with a Halloween tablecloth. If you don’t own one, don’t panic. Go to your local store and find a black, orange, or purple plastic table cloth in the party aisle. While you’re there, pick up some small gourds and add those to the table (you can keep those around as decoration until Thanksgiving).
You can leave it as simple as that, or you can go all out… I went all out.
Be creative with your decorations. I have a life-sized plastic model skull I like to use as a centerpiece. Replace the light over your table with a blacklight. Make cobwebs out of cotton and add plastic spiders. Bring in your freshly carved jack-o-lantern and light the candle in it. Create Frankenstein’s monster head with a small box, construction paper, and crayons. Something as simple as Halloween-colored balloons as a centerpiece work too. You could even garnish the table, or each plate, with gummy worms, plastic spiders, and bat rings.
So now that you have the table set, here are the 10 unique snacks you can create to spook your family:
Witch Fingers
I found some deli-style meat sticks (sausages or hot dogs work well too) and roughly cut them into 3-inch pieces. Real fingers vary in size so don't worry about it if some are longer than others.
(Does anyone know how long a real witch’s fingers are anyway?)
Shave the end of one side on each finger down a little to make it look like the top of a real finger. Now slice a couple of little grooves about midway between ends to replicate knuckles.
(Use your own fingers as guidelines on where you should make these cuts and marks.)
For fingernails, place almond slices or pumpkin seeds on the shaved ends.
Put a small dab of ketchup or red sauce underneath each “nail” to help them stick. The added bonus is that they will look a little bloody. If you're having trouble keeping them on, you may have to dig a little grove to stick them in.
Finally, splash some red sauce or ketchup over everything to make it look like they were freshly cut off of the wicked witch.
Orange Pumpkins
This is just a peeled orange. I used a small piece of celery for the stem, but you can substitute almost anything. Use a carrot, licorice, or a fat pretzel rod and stick it in the top.
Ants on a Log
Here's a popular snack. Break apart the celery stalks. As with any fruit or vegetable, after you cut up your celery, make sure you rinse the pieces off in the sink. Stab a butter knife in peanut butter and fill up your celery pieces. I like crunchy peanut butter but obviously creamy will do.
Now take raisins and place a few of them on each log. Done!
Banana Ghosts
Peel some bananas and cut them in half. Now stick a couple of chocolate chips near the top for their eyes.
To get the spook to stand up, you may have to cut the bottom of the banana a little or push it into the plate to flatten them.
Pep-o-Lanterns
This one is a little tougher than the rest of the treats. You're going to carve out a face on the pepper. You don't need the knife skills of a brain surgeon or a horror movie character, but there’s more to it than just stabbing or slicing the pepper. Think of it as though you're carving a mini pumpkin.
I grabbed an orange-colored sweet pepper because it looks like a mini pumpkin. Actually, any color works so if you prefer the flavor of green or yellow peppers use those. You may even want to add color to your table by making a pep-o-lantern out of all the different sweet peppers.
Start by cutting a lid out of the top with a kitchen utility knife, steak knife, or paring knife. Cut at an angle like you would on a pumpkin so that you can replace the lid once you're done. Then get rid of the lump of seeds by cutting the inside of the lid off.
I don't like eating the white stuff (pith) inside the pepper. So when once the lid is off, I reach in and pinch it out with my fingers. You could also scrape it out with a spoon. Either way (as with any fruit or vegetable from the store) you should rinse it under cold water to clean it. This also helps to get rid of any remaining seeds.
Next, pick out the perfect side of the pepper to carve the face. You may want to sketch out your face on paper ahead of time. But I found it easy to just make triangle eyes skip the nose and make a simple mouth with jagged teeth.
Suggestion:
If your family likes to eat a lot of peppers, cut some more into slices and place them in the pep-o-lantern.
Fruit Mummies
This one is pretty simple. Use toilet paper, an elastic bandage, athletic tape, or even a t-shirt torn in long strips. tape the end of the wrap at the bottom and start winding it around all the way to the top.
Either leave room for eyes or separate the bandages where they should be. You can either glue on googly eyes or draw them on with a permanent marker.
**I made an orange mummy, but you could make one out of almost any fruit or vegetable. Cantaloupes work too - You can draw on them, plus they're much bigger and easier to wrap.
Spider Sandwiches
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are great go-to sandwiches, but make whatever you and the kids like.
I used bread slices and cut them into circles (you can use the leftover scraps to make stuffing). If you don't plan on using the scraps, then I would suggest using biscuits or slider buns instead of wasting the extra bread.
Once I had the circles cut out, I added my PB&J. I used M&M’s for the eyes, but again, you could use raisins, skittles, chocolate chips, or anything else. For the legs, I use 4 pretzel sticks on each side.
Suggestion:
These don't have to be spiders. For example, use slider buns with 6 legs antennas, and add different colored M&M's all over the top to make beetles.
Witch Brooms
I used cheese sticks and pretzels to make this treat. Cut cheese sticks into smaller pieces. Then slice across one of the ends several times to make it look like the end of a broom. Then add a pretzel broomstick to the back end of it.
Suggestion:You could also make your witches’ brooms out of hotdogs. Cut the hot dogs into smaller pieces. On one end, cut across it several times like you did with the cheese sticks. When you put it in a frying pan to cook it, those cuts start to separate and bend. It might even start to look like an octopus. Stick a pretzel broomstick in the other end to finish.
Bonus: These cooked hotdogs look kind of creepy. So you could leave the broomstick off a few of them and add eyes if you want some octopuses on your table.Zombie Heads
Take big fat marshmallows and slice tiny cuts in random spots. Next, stick chocolate chips or raisins on one side to make eyes. Drizzle a couple drops of red or green food coloring over the top of them. Finally, place small walnuts on the top of each zombie to look like brains.
Floating Hand
Fill a disposable rubber glove, or a food service glove, with water. Leave enough room at the end of it so you can tie it closed like a balloon. When you place it in your freezer, make sure you lay it flat. You could also place the palm of the hand on something so the fingers hang down slightly. Once it's frozen, rip or cut the glove off of the ice hand and float it in a serving bowl full of punch. I used Hi-C fruit punch because it's red like blood.
Now play some spooky Halloween noises or music, dim the lights, and let the fun begin!
Happy Halloween!
P.S. - If you really want to get the kids excited, buy donuts the morning of Halloween. Shove fake vampire teeth in them and drizzle some blood-red jelly over them to start your day with a fright!
Leave a comment below and let me know about your favorite Halloween food and beverage traditions!
