Fifteen Halloween dishes for children you can make with what any ordinary supermarket sells, most of them in under half an hour and with the children as helpers. From mummy sausages and ghost sandwiches to pumpkin clementines and green slime soup. Sorted by how much work they take.
A children's Halloween party doesn't need a single new ingredient. It needs orange, black, a few eyes and a name for the dish that makes a six-year-old shriek. Here are the dishes our nannies make with families at the end of October, the ones that actually get eaten and that the children can make themselves.
Saturday at two o'clock in a kitchen in Nacka, the party starts at four. Three children aged five to eight have each been given a job: one draws faces on clementines, one presses raisins into the ghost sandwiches, and the eldest wraps puff pastry around sausages with a concentration she never shows for homework. The kitchen is chaos, but when the guests arrive there are ten dishes on the table and the children have made seven of them. That is the point of Halloween food: it is a craft you can eat.
Five minutes per dish
- Pumpkin clementines. Draw faces on the peel with a black marker. A stick of celery as the stalk if you like.
- Ghost bananas. Halved bananas, chocolate buttons for eyes.
- Bat olives. One black olive as the body, a halved olive as wings, on a cube of cheese.
- Cucumber snake. A cucumber cut into slices laid in a winding line, a forked tongue made of pepper.
- Popcorn in orange bags. Paper bags with pumpkin faces drawn on.
Fifteen minutes per dish
- Mummy sausages. Sausages wrapped in thin strips of puff pastry, oven at 200 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes until the pastry is golden. Mustard eyes.
- Ghost sandwiches. White bread cut with a ghost-shaped cutter, cheese underneath, eyes of black sesame seeds or raisins.
- Ghost eggs. Hard-boiled eggs, halved, with olive eyes. Or whole eggs with faces drawn on.
- Pizza mummies. Mini pizzas with strips of mozzarella as bandages, olives as eyes.
- Witch's fingers. Carrot sticks with an almond as the fingernail, stuck on with a little cream cheese. Dip on the side.
Half an hour per dish
- Green slime soup. Broccoli soup or pea soup, blended smooth, served in a black bowl with a dollop of cream as a ghost.
- Pumpkin soup. The real thing: pumpkin, onion, stock, blend. Toasted pumpkin seeds on top.
- Spider muffins. Chocolate muffins with a chokladboll (the Swedish chocolate oat ball) on top and legs made of liquorice laces.
- Witch's hats. Ice cream cones dipped in melted chocolate, set upside down on a biscuit.
- Snake bread. Bread dough rolled into a long snake, baked on a tray, raisin eyes pressed in before baking.
Shopping list for all fifteen
| Buy | Enough for |
|---|---|
| Clementines, bananas, cucumber, carrots, peppers | Pumpkin clementines, ghost bananas, cucumber snake, witch's fingers |
| Black olives, a block of cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella | Bats, witch's fingers, pizza mummies |
| Sausages, puff pastry, mustard, eggs | Mummy sausages, ghost eggs |
| White bread, mini pizza bases, bread dough, raisins, sesame seeds | Ghost sandwiches, pizza mummies, snake bread |
| Broccoli or peas, pumpkin, onion, stock, cream | Both soups |
| Chocolate muffins, chokladbollar, liquorice laces, ice cream cones, chocolate | Spider muffins, witch's hats |
| Popcorn, orange paper bags, black marker, jelly worms, squash, frozen raspberries | Popcorn, drinks and all the decoration |
Drinks
A jug of orange squash with jelly worms at the bottom, or green squash as a magic potion. Water with frozen raspberries that sink and bleed colour. Dry ice is fun but only with adults who know how to handle it, and never in the glass the child drinks from.
Serve the drinks in clear glasses or plastic cups so the worms and raspberries show. Write the children's names on the cups with a black marker in advance; it saves ten new cups and an argument about whose was whose. And put the jug on a table the children can reach themselves, so you are not pouring for twenty minutes.
Allergies and the youngest guests
Ask about allergies when you send the invitation, not when the guests are standing in the hallway. Nuts are the common one: swap the almond on the witch's fingers for a piece of pepper and check the chocolate on the muffins. Gluten: ghost sandwiches on gluten-free bread and mummy sausages without puff pastry, wrapped in a strip of cheese instead. Milk: most of the first five dishes are free of it anyway. And for guests under four the usual rule applies: no whole nuts or almonds, no whole grapes, no popcorn, because of the choking risk. They are not big changes, but they are what make every parent comfortable leaving their children.
Timetable: the day before and on the day
| When | What |
|---|---|
| The day before | Shop. Boil the eggs. Make the soups and put them in the fridge. Draw pumpkin clementines with the children, they keep until the next day |
| Three hours before | Bake the snake bread and muffins. Fill the popcorn bags. Slice the cucumber |
| One hour before | Mummy sausages and pizza mummies into the oven. Ghost sandwiches and witch's fingers plated up |
| When the guests arrive | Popcorn and fruit are out. The rest comes out in rounds |
| After the food | Spider muffins, one per child, then trick or treat |
How to get the children to eat the food, not just the sweets
Put what you want them to eat on the table first, and keep the sweets and muffins in the kitchen until the food has been eaten. Give every dish a name and say it out loud as it comes in: those aren't carrots, they're witch's fingers. And let the guests do something themselves at the table, like pressing eyes onto their own ghost sandwich. A child who has made their food eats it. More recipes that work on ordinary days are in Food children actually like.
The party, in order
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Guests arrive | Popcorn and pumpkin clementines are out |
| Crafts or games | See our Halloween games for kids and Halloween crafts for kids |
| Food | Mummy sausages, ghost sandwiches, soup for those who want it |
| Dessert | Spider muffins, one per child |
| Trick or treat | After the food, never before |
How we do it with our families
In the last week of October our nannies make mummy sausages with the children after förskola (municipal preschool, from age one), because it is a craft and a dinner at the same time. Nike has two children in Sundbyberg on Thursdays, and on the Thursday before Halloween there is puff pastry on the kitchen table at four o'clock: the six-year-old wraps, the three-year-old presses on mustard eyes and most of it ends up on the table rather than on the sausage. By dinner at six there are twelve mummy sausages on the table and Mum gets a picture with the note. Because it is the same nanny, she knows which child refuses olives and which one wants all the eyes, and she knows the three-year-old isn't allowed popcorn yet.
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Read more: Halloween crafts for kids · Halloween games for kids · Food children actually like · FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest thing to make for a children's Halloween party?
Mummy sausages: sausages wrapped in strips of puff pastry, mustard eyes. Ghost sandwiches with ghost-shaped bread and cheese underneath. Clementines drawn as pumpkins. Everything takes under half an hour and the children can join in at almost every step. Make the clementines and ghost bananas with the children the day before, and half the table is ready when the guests arrive.
Does everything have to be scary?
No. Small children want orange and black, not blood. Pumpkins with happy faces, smiling ghosts, bats made of olives. Save the gooey stuff, like slime soup and raspberry blood, for children over eight, and ask the birthday child in advance what they find fun and what they find creepy. A four-year-old who is scared of their own dessert won't eat it.
What do you drink?
Green or orange squash with a handful of jelly worms in the jug, or water with frozen raspberries as blood. No colouring that stains white costumes. Dry ice is fun to look at, but only in a bowl on the table that adults look after, never in the glass the child drinks from. Have plain water out too; there is always one child who doesn't want a green drink.
Can you make Halloween food without sugar?
Yes: mummy sausages, pumpkin clementines, ghost eggs from hard-boiled eggs, cucumber cut into snakes, popcorn in orange bags, witch's fingers made of carrot. The sweets come with trick or treat anyway; the food doesn't need to be sweet. Put the sugar-free things on the table first and the spider muffins last, and it gets eaten in the right order.
What about allergies and small children?
Ask the parents about allergies with the invitation and write them down. Swap the almond on the witch's fingers for a piece of pepper if any child has a nut allergy, and skip whole nuts and almonds for children under four because of the choking risk. Popcorn and whole grapes are not for the littlest either. They are boring rules, but they are easy to follow.