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Make your Halloween dinner extra spooky this year by trying out some of our fun Halloween food ideas. From drinks to dinner to desserts, we’ve got you covered! Be sure to grab our complete menu plan for a spooky Halloween dinner along with our printable shopping list.
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A Family Halloween Tradition
Halloween food is about so much more than candy! Growing up, our mom always made sure we had a hot, hearty meal before heading out for a night of trick-or-treating. Filling us up with something wholesome meant we could enjoy our candy without overdoing it. None of us ever ended up with a stomachache on Halloween night!
Now, we’ve carried on the same tradition with our own kids. From savory casseroles to soup baked right inside a pumpkin, these meals make the evening feel extra special while keeping little tummies full. In this post, we’ve rounded up all of our favorite Halloween recipes—drinks, appetizers, mains, and desserts—plus a sample meal plan and shopping list to make planning easy. Mix and match your favorites to create your own family tradition, and let the spooky fun begin!
🧡 Erica
Spaghetti and Eyeballs
Serve up a spooky Halloween dinner with our Spaghetti and Eyeballs recipe! Juicy meatballs are topped with mozzarella and olives to look like creepy eyeballs, then served over saucy spaghetti for a frightfully fun meal kids and adults will love.
Dinner in a Pumpkin
This festive Dinner in a Pumpkin recipe features a savory ground beef and rice casserole baked inside a whole pumpkin, with tender roasted pumpkin mixed in for a cozy, fall-flavored meal. It’s a fun, hearty dish that’s perfect for serving before trick-or-treating on Halloween night.
Soup in a Pumpkin
Soup in a Pumpkin is a spooky-season favorite—this hearty sausage, kale, and Swiss-cheddar soup is slow-cooked inside a hollowed pumpkin, then served with tender chunks of roasted pumpkin stirred in for extra fall flavor. It’s a showstopping dish that makes a magical Halloween night centerpiece.
Chili Frito Casserole
If you’re looking for something a little different from the pumpkin-themed mains, this Chili Frito Casserole delivers bold, Southwestern flavor in every bite. Layers of zesty chili, crunchy corn chips, and melty cheese make it a fun, kid-friendly dinner that’s quick to prepare—perfect for fueling up before a busy Halloween night.
Halloween Appetizers
Kick off your Halloween dinner with a trio of quick and creative appetizers! See our 3 Easy Halloween Appetizer recipes featuring eerie Spider Web Guacamole, a cheesy Pumpkin Cheese Ball, and playful Mummy Dogs — perfect for adding festive flair and flavor before the main course on Halloween night.
Halloween Drinks
Just like Halloween dinner ideas, the possibilities for Halloween drinks are endless. We’ve all taken the shortcut of throwing plastic eyeballs or gummy worms into a mix of juice and soda, and that works great, but the fall flavors in these drinks make them extra special. For Harry Potter themed Halloween parties, you try one of our specialty Harry Potter drinks. They are the perfect companion to any of our Halloween dinners. Click on any image above for the recipe.
Halloween Dessert Ideas
Oh, how we LOVE our Halloween desserts! For the adults who don’t want to settle for candy, any fall-inspired dessert with pumpkin is a great choice for Halloween. Make them extra for Halloween by adding black frosting spiders or garnish with candy corn pumpkins.
Halloween Treats for Kids
Just in case you aren’t getting enough sugar this Halloween while trick-or-treating, here are some ideas for some kid-friendly Halloween treats. These are perfect for class parties, potlucks, a witch’s night out, or trunk-or-treats. Pick up some candy eyeballs next time you go to a craft store. Those candy eyes come in handy for turning basic cookies, cupcakes, or even graham crackers into something spooky, like monsters!
Spooky Halloween Dinner Menu
Our Spooky Halloween Dinner menu includes all of the Halloween recipes you need for a frightfully easy Halloween dinner PLUS, we have a shopping list for you to download with all of the ingredients you will need to make each menu item. This what’s on the menu: Spaghetti and Eyeballs, Caesar Spider Salad, Mummy Garlic Bread, Halloween Punch with Shrunken Heads, and Spider Cake for dessert.
Main Dish: Spaghetti with Eyeballs
- Use your favorite canned spaghetti sauce, spaghetti pasta, store bought meatballs, cheese and olives. For full instructions, see our Spaghetti with Eyeballs recipe post.
- To give the spaghetti the twirled “nest” look, just twist big scoops spaghetti with a fork in a ladle (my niece Kelsey taught me how to do this and I LOVE how it looks)!
- Serve with a side of parmesan cheese for sprinkling.
Side Dish: Caesar Spider Salad
- For this simple side, just use a bagged Caesar salad kit and place plastic spiders over the top.
- If you want to add eyeballs to this, slice grape tomatoes in half, slice off a circle of string cheese, and add an olive (much like the meatballs in the spaghetti).
- You can also add grilled chicken and serve this salad as more of a main course.
Bread: Mummy Cheesy Garlic Bread
- To make this mummy bread, cut up some strips of mozzarella cheese (strips of string cheese work well too).
- Place them on a bakery garlic bread.
- Heat the bread in the oven at 375 degrees for about 5 minutes.
- Finally, add a couple olive slices for “eyes”.
Halloween Punch: Shrunken (Apple) Head Punch
- This is a fun way to get your kids involved in dinner preparation. Let them “carve” their own jack-o lanterns out of apples. They’ll get a kick out of seeing their apple “heads” floating in the punch!
- Slice each apple in half and let the kids carve out faces.
- Bake the apple halves in the oven at 200-degrees for about 10 minutes and then put them in the fridge to cool.
- You can also use a cookie cutter to create fun shapes in the apples.
- For the punch, use 2 liters of water, 2 liters ginger ale (chilled), 46 oz pineapple juice (chilled), and 4 Jolly Rancher Green Apple “On-The-Go” packets. Instead of putting ice in the punch bowl, you can put the ice in the individual glasses to prevent the juice from being watered down.
Dessert: Giant Spider Cake
This might be my favorite thing on the whole menu (and my favorite Halloween dinner idea overall!). This is so fun to make and the finished product looks SO COOL.
See our full recipe post for Spider Cake for the ingredients and instructions.
Halloween Dinner Shopping List
To make things nice and easy for you, we have put together a shopping list for this particular meal plan. Here’s what you need for this easy Halloween dinner meal plan. The dinner feeds 4-6, the dessert feeds 12-15. You can download this list to your phone or to print below:
🎃 Ready to plan the ultimate spooky feast? Dive into our Halloween Dinner Ideas post to plan everything you need from eerie appetizers and haunting mains to desserts, drinks, and even a printable shopping list—perfect for a stress-free Halloween night!
Don’t forget to leave a comment and share what you’ve made or your favorite dinner to serve on Halloween—we’d love to hear your ideas!
Thank you Erica! Having a sleepover with my Granddaughters next weekend and Spaghetti and meatballs is their favorite. I am definetly going to make this supper, soooo adorable! They will love it. Maybe turn it into a little party with a couple of their cousins. Thank you so much for sharing.
Oh wow – so many great ideas to save! My favorite would probably be spaghetti with meatball eyes – so spooky! 😉
This is such a delicious recipe! Can’t wait to try it for Halloween!
These are such fun Halloween dinner ideas for kids!
I love all these options to create a wonderful Halloween themed dinner!
All these ideas look amazing and perfect for a Halloween theme! Looking forward to making that bundt cake 🙂
overall i would rate this a 4 star because the treat recipes do not give the recipe