31 Days of Horror: 9 Horrifying Halloween Recipes You Don’t Have to Be a Wizard to Make

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list.

Listen, there’s thousands upon thousands of Halloween how-tos out there for ghostly cupcakes, meat heads, bloody this or that, and skeleton charcuterie. And that’s not a bad thing. We love spooky season, and personally, I love to cook, and to be artistic with what I serve. BUT...this is the start of busy season for us in the pop culture journalism world and let’s be honest, for most people.

There’s a lot of Halloween events to be had, from haunted houses to pumpkin carving, apple picking and corn mazes. You might also get invited to a last minute Halloween shindig.

When we set out to make this list we wanted to showcase classics, truly creepy things, and things that include techniques you can apply creatively to other things, and okay, a few things that are just cool. Or gross. Or cool AND gross.

But overall, we also wanted the list to be inclusive for people who don’t have a ton of time and who may not want to meticulously paint on details or arrange fruits and veg into elaborate calaveras and set it on top of dry ice to create a cool fog (though, totally do that if you're so inclined.)

Classics:

These Halloween party favorites have stood the test of time, and it’s absolutely for a reason. 

Pumpkin Cheese Ball:  

This looks good and involves a lot of cheese. And it’s really, really not difficult. Promise. There’s a million recipes, you can mix in stuff like peppers, but essentially it’s a big ball of cheese you can put on a platter with some crackers and people can go nuts with. It shouldn’t be a hard sell, and it’s certainly not hard to do. Here’s a recipe as an example.

You can go hard on the pumpkiny realism or just make a ball and roll it in Cheezit crumbles. Put on a stem (green pepper stems work great!) and you’re off to the races.

Mummy Jalapeno Poppers: 

If you’ve never made jalapeno poppers before, never fear - they’re not terribly difficult, though I will start off with a warning.  Beware touching your eyes or face when making them. Please. I’ve had encounters. It’s not great.  Anyway, you basically just grab some jalapenos, scrape out the guts with a spoon, replace the guts with cream cheese and move on with your life. UNLESS it’s Halloween, and THEN you also wrap those little suckers in crescent roll dough (or little strips of bacon if you want to go more crepey - and you put little eyeballs on them, which you can do with pieces of black olive, colored cream cheese, or…whatever else might serve as a little peeper. Put ‘em in the oven, and they’ll be mummy jalapeno poppers.  It’s fantastic. You can even go a little gorier and add some raspberry jam to serve them with to bloody ‘em up.

Here’s a recipe: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/party-ideas/a41535114/mummy-jalapeno-poppers-recipe/

Oreo Bats:

Ok, this is a no-brainer, and you can accomplish these in VERY little time. Like, you can just grab a pack of Oreos on the way to the party, with a few candy eyeballs and mini chocolate chips, and bam. You’ve got Oreo bats. They’re adorable, and since this is literally the most popular cookie in the damn world, they won’t be hanging around long. They’ll fly off the plate!

If you have a little MORE time, you can put on some little fangs with blood, or whatever.  But seriously. It looks way cooler it has any right to, and if you break a few, oh nooooo, you’re gonna have to eat those.

Here’s a…recipe?  These bats have horns for some reason, but they’re adorable, and I like more chocolate.

Creepy:

Shrimp Brain: 

So like, this one’s gross. But awesome. And it involves gelatin. Hold on to your butts. I know a jello mold full of shrimp invokes a different kind of fear. But this is a Martha Stewart recipe, and it looks really cool. Yes, it involves buying a brain mold, but I mean, the possibilities with one of those suckers is endless. 

Now, Martha serves these on elaborate head stands with a bit of muslin mummy wrap on the top, but…you can just get it out of the mold, onto a plate, and throw a little cocktail sauce on top to make it kinda bloody.  Super gross, super delicious, perfect for a party.

Halloween Cheese Ball Hand Appetizer

This is the intersection of really bougie snack food and really gross presentation and I adore it. That said, because everything is so expensive, you can achieve somewhat the same effect with any sort of, um, flesh colored lunch meat. Be creative. 

It’s kinda fun, too, hearkening back to those arts and crafts you used to do in elementary school where you’d trace your hand or arm and then go from there. Only this time, it’s decidedly more macabre. The basics? You trace your hand, then you wrap prosciutto, pepperoni, ham, turkey, etc, around some harder cheese for fingers (string cheese, anyone? Or go fancier with provolone,etc) and then you flesh out (I’m so sorry) the rest of it with a cream cheese blend that’s fantastic to dip your crackers and veggies in.

Here’s some instruction: https://www.mynameissnickerdoodle.com/halloween-cheese-ball-hand/

Feet Loaf:

This was one of the first ridiculous themed holiday things I ever made my husband, when we were still dating, and hey, it worked!  It's simple: Make a meat loaf, but y’know, make it feet. You use cuts of onion for the toenails, you can throw a leek bottom in there for a leg bone sticking out (my personal touch) and there’s that bbq sauce/ketchup glaze that’s there to make things bloody disgusting. 

Bonus if you make mashed potatoes and pipe them to look like little ghosts.  And maybe take the potato leavings and form them into little gravestones for your ghosts. It’s comfort food gone horribly wrong, and I WILL try this one again.

Here’s a great recipe for it: https://www.mynameissnickerdoodle.com/halloween-feet-loaf-recipe/

Cross-functional: 

This section is something I decided to add last minute, because it’s representative of things you can take the technique from and run with.  To be fair, there’s been a few of these already - Oreos are a great example, as you can coat them in chocolate, put eyes, Halloween sprinkles, spider legs, or make them into pumpkins, but that’s just the start. Let’s discuss three fun techniques that make regular stuff spooky.

Jack-o-lantern All The Things:

I love a stuffed pepper. It’s one of my favorite meals. As you know, there’s orange bell peppers at your local grocery store. And what could be more fun than carving little faces in them before you stuff ‘em. That’s right, nearly nothing.

But it doesn’t stop at stuffed peppers.

You can jack-o’-lantern quesadillas, like these skull pizzadillas, too!

Spiderwebs:

Spiderwebs can go on anything. You can stir sour cream in your guac and spiderweb it, or make a beautiful cake and spiderweb it.

It's not super hard, as hard as it may look. The basic technique is this: Make concentric circles, then drag a toothpick/butterknife/skewer through the circles. Easy to accomplish, easy to practice. Super effective.

And not only is it creepy, it’s gorgeous. Here’s just two examples, but let your imagination run wild with ways you can pull this one off.

Eyeball It:

Here’s another tip: put eyeballs on things, in things. Make things look like giant eyeballs. It’s not super hard, but it is effective. It’s really easy to make eyeballs, too, whether you’ve got a savory dish (black olives and green olives are KEY to this) or sweet (icing and chocolate, chocolate chips, marshmallows/fluff).  I’ve even seen some really clever caprese skewers featuring mozzarella pearls with black olive pupils, salami, tomatoes and basil drizzled in balsamic that were eerie and fancy at once.

One of my favorites though is sliders. You can make sloppy joes, burgers, chicken- almost anything, and then stick some black olives on some toothpicks and boom, here’s some delicious and absurdly anthropomorphized sandwiches for your party. 

Make your deviled eggs into eyeballs, make a giant eyeball cake. The eyes have it. (I can’t stop myself.)

Here’s a few parting tips:

Peeled clementines look like pumpkins. Peeled grapes are great eyeballs. You can mummy almost anything with a tube of crescent roll dough. Ghosts can be made of marshmallow, mozzarella or white chocolate and you just need to put on some eyes to make it work. Colored candy discs can coat fruit, pretzels and more, or make a simple bark you can throw eyeballs, sprinkles and candy in. Go nuts! Oh, and speaking of…almonds make great fangs for cookie sandwiches.

Anyway, here’s just 9 different ideas that hopefully don’t take a ton of time or a lot of money. Run with this.  And share your favorites in the comments so we have even more to bring to the party in the future!