Surprise your children with these fun, spooky, and festive takes on their lunchtime favorites.
Little trick-or-treaters will be inundated with candy and sweets soon enough, so treat them to a fun, healthy surprise rather than a sugary snack. They’ll love their unique and delicious lunch, and you’ll love how quick and effortless these recipes are to make!
- Carrot Pumpkins – Little Dairy on the Prairie
Put your knife skills to the test with these hand-cut carrot pumpkins. You simply cut parallel lines on the top of the carrot to create the pumpkin stem and then cut the carrot into slices. Little Dairy on the Prairie has an extremely helpful and easy to follow video on their blog.
- Grape Caterpillar Kabobs – Princess and the Frog Blog
Here’s another quick and easy recipe – just skewer a series of grapes and then, using icing, attach two candy eyeballs to the last grape. Easy as that! This is a wonderful recipe with which to get the kids involved.
- Silly Apple Bites – Fork and Beans
This snack is a little more labor intensive, but the final product makes it worth it. Using apples, strawberries, sunflower seeds, sunflower butter (this can easily be substituted for regular peanut butter depending on your preference), and candy eyeballs you can create a silly – and healthy– monster inspired treat.
- PB & J Spiders – Welches
Using a round cookie cutter, cut out two bread circles and lather with your child’s favorite peanut butter and jelly. Insert eight pretzel sticks (four on each side) to make the spider legs. Top it off with two chocolate chips for eyeballs! You can also swap the bread for crackers.
- Ants on a Log – Cincy Shopper
Smear peanut butter along the inside of celery sticks and top with either raisins or chocolate chips. Simple and delicious! Don’t be afraid to get creative, too. Try smearing a veggie dip instead of peanut butter and top with cherry tomatoes for a caterpillar on a log. Get more inspiration here.
- Halloween Popcorn Hand – Yummy Healthy Easy
Simply stuff popcorn into a plastic glove (a food contact glove works great), and include a piece of candy corn at the end of each finger for the nail. Depending on your child’s preference, use regular popcorn, kettle corn, caramel corn, or cheesy popcorn – or a mix!
- Mandarin Pumpkins – A Designer Life
Using a black marker, draw a jack-o-lantern face on the mandarin orange peel – that’s it. You can also draw a ghost face on a banana peel, a cheese stick, or a package of cheese crackers. Don’t forget to ask for your child’s help as they’ll love showing off their artwork to their friends in the lunchroom.
- Pretzel and Cheese Broomsticks – One Little Project
Cut a mozzarella cheese stick into three pieces, and partially peel each section. Poke a pretzel into the unpeeled end of each cheese stick. For authenticity, tie a small piece of chive around the top of the cheese stick. You can view a step-by-step tutorial for images on One Little Project’s blog.
- Cheese Monsters – Danya Banya
During Halloween, you can never have enough googly eyes! Using a small knife, cut out a monster face on the wax of a Babybel cheese. Then using a non-toxic glue, attach googly eyes of varying sizes to the wax.
- Spooky Halloween Snack Mix – Confetti & Bliss
This recipe calls for Corn Chex cereal, pretzels, Bugles, candy corn, Reese’s Pieces, and candy eyeballs, but you can mix and match to your heart’s content. Try using up leftover snacks in the pantry instead, like popcorn or Cheerios.
You can view these easy-to-follow recipes on our Pinterest board, Campsite Recipes.