It’s easy to forget about dinner on Halloween night when there is trick-or-treating to do, but don’t let it slip! Halloween dinner is so important! Keep reading for 10 great Halloween dinner ideas.
Halloween is a crazy day for many parents. It’s not easy to fit in a two-hour activity into days that are already pretty rigidly scheduled. This is especially true when Halloween falls on a weekday and you work outside the home. So, I get that me telling you that it’s important to give your kids a good dinner on Halloween might feel a bit overwhelming. But, stay with me. It doesn’t have to be some elaborate affair. You can give your kids (and yourself) a good dinner without pushing yourself over the edge on Halloween.
What makes a good Halloween dinner?
- Your kids will eat it. Look, if you make a Halloween dinner that checks all of the other boxes but your kids won’t eat it, it was all for naught. So, first focus on what your kids eat. If they are going through a stage in which it’s chicken nuggets or nothing, then please serve chicken nuggets as your Halloween dinner.
- It’s protein packed. Ideally, we want to fill our kids up with food that will stick with them on Halloween night. Trick-or-treating can actually involve quite a bit of exercise, so you want your kids to have enough energy to get through it. And although you do expect your kids to eat some candy on Halloween night, you’d rather them get the bulk of their calories from nutritional food rather than just filling up on candy.
- If it’s cold outside on Halloween where you live, it should warm them up from the inside. I have that old Campbell’s soup commercial that shows a snowman come inside and turn into a kid after he eats a piping hot bowl of soup seared into my memory. It shouldn’t be cold enough that your kids will turn into snowmen on Halloween, but if it’s chilly, you’ll want a Halloween dinner that will warm them up inside to help keep them toasty as they traipse around the neighborhood.
- It’s easy to make. This one is for you, moms. Don’t over-extend yourself for Halloween dinner. Lean heavily into things that are easy to make and serve. Use your slow cooker, rely on premade dinners that you can just heat up on Halloween night, or pick a super quick meal that you can make while you’re getting your kids in their costumes.
- BONUS: it’s festive. If you have time and are so inclined, of course you can make a festive Halloween dinner. I’ll note below where you have some opportunities to dial up the festive vibes. Remember, this is only a bonus. It’s way more important to focus on filling those bellies than it is to make your Halloween dinner look like a spider.
I have 10 ideas that check many of these boxes that are great options for Halloween dinner. Pick one and enjoy!
Halloween Dinner Ideas
Chili
Chili and cornbread is our Halloween tradition in my house. It checks all of the boxes for us. My kids usually eat chili and always eat cornbread, it’s full of protein (especially if you include beans – puree them if you have bean skeptics!), and it warms you up from the inside. It’s not particularly festive, but I’m not a crafty mom, so my kids don’t expect a lot.
I like to mix up what chili recipe I make for Halloween dinner. My personal favorite is just a classic kidney bean and ground beef chili, my husband likes a bean-free turkey sweet potato chili, and occasionally I’ll throw in a wildcard like a white chili or a pumpkin chili. As for the cornbread, you can make it from scratch or use a boxed mix. Either works just fine. If you want to get really fancy and also get a bonus vegetable in your kids, you can make broccoli cornbread.
Broccoli cornbread
I have no idea where this recipe originated. I know it as Mrs. F’s cornbread.
What you’ll need: 4 eggs, 1 frozen box of chopped broccoli, ¼ tsp salt, 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 stick of butter, and 2 boxes of Jiffy cornbread
Throw the frozen broccoli, eggs, salt, and cottage cheese in the blender and blend until smooth-ish. Mix with 1 stick of melted butter. Fold in cornbread mix. Pour into a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Bake at 350°F for 30-45 minutes or until firm to the touch.
Grilled cheese & tomato soup
As I mentioned when I originally talked about this weeknight no-recipe dinner, my kids would happily eat grilled cheese and tomato soup every night of the week. If your kids are similarly obsessed, this is a great, easy option for Halloween dinner. If your kids like basic grilled cheese, slap a few pieces of sliced cheese between two pieces of buttered bread, grill the sandwiches, and call it a day. You can also make the grilled cheese a bit more exciting with extras like bacon or tomato for the grown-ups in your life or the kids that have a more sophisticated palate.
Quesadillas
Another weeknight no-recipe dinner that you can absolutely turn into a Halloween dinner, quesadillas are an easy option for Halloween night. You can literally slap anything you have plus cheese between two tortillas and throw it on the griddle. If you want to be extra and make a more festive Halloween dinner, this is an easy one to dress up for the occasion. Specifically, take a sharp knife and cut out a jack-o-lantern face from one tortilla. Make sure you use orange/yellow cheese to get the full pumpkin effect!
Pizza
I love any excuse to make pizza. Seriously, it’s so easy, so delicious, and so adaptable to whatever you’re craving. Feel like Tex Mex? Make a taco pizza! Want a more traditional pizza experience? Grab the pepperoni! Want a spooky meal for Halloween dinner? Turn your pizza into a mummy.
Mummy pizza
This is just a cheese pizza, but a cute one.
Shape your dough however you prefer. Add pizza sauce. Cut mozzarella cheese into strips and arrange over the sauce to make it look like mummy bandages. Throw your mummy pizza on the grill or in a 450°F oven.
Enchiladas
Here’s one for all my freezer-meal loving mamas! Enchiladas are such a great make-ahead dinner. They’re not super hard to make, but they freeze like a dream. If you’re crunched for time on Halloween night, make some enchiladas over the weekend and pop them in the freezer. Grab them out of the freezer in the morning on Halloween and shove them in the oven at 400°F for about 25 minutes when you get home. In the time it takes to get your kids changed into their costumes, dinner is ready. Halloween dinner really can be this easy!
Nachos
Continuing on the Tex Mex theme (can you tell what kind of food I’m currently craving?), nachos are a great Halloween dinner option. My kids love nachos. It’s a way for them to have chips for dinner, so they’re naturally in love. Nachos are also just a really fun dinner, so they make sense for a really fun day like Halloween. They’re also very easy to compile and are a great way to clean out the refrigerator. Use whatever you have. Seriously. Leftover meat works great here. If you don’t have leftover meat, open a can of beans. Whatever you have on hand makes for delicious nachos.
Pulled pork sandwiches
Pulled pork is another great use of your slow cooker on Halloween night. Pop a pork shoulder in the crockpot, rub with your favorite spice blend, and squirt in your favorite BBQ sauce. Set on low for 8 hours. When you get home, shred your pork and pile it high on buns. Grab some pre-made cole slaw at the grocery store on the way home if you really want to get fancy. Add some chips on the side for a complete kid-friendly Halloween dinner. Bonus: this should leave with you with great leftovers to make nachos or stuffed potatoes or whatever else your heart desires!
Hot dogs
Hot dogs are one of my favorite no-recipe meals, especially when you wrap them in crescent roll dough and make them into pigs in a blanket. You can plus up pigs in a blanket even further for your Halloween dinner by turning them into mummy dogs! Take your crescent roll dough and cut each triangle into strips. Wrap the strips from one triangle around each hot dog in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. Bake them at 375°F for about 15 minutes and you have the most adorable Halloween dinner ever!
Spaghetti & meatballs
Who doesn’t love spaghetti & meatballs? It is the epitome of comfort food. It also makes a great Halloween dinner. Most kids will eat spaghetti and meatballs, it’s got a ton of protein, it’s warming, and it’s super easy (especially if you throw frozen meatballs in the crockpot with jarred sauce). If you really want to win Halloween dinner, you can turn your meatballs into eyeballs with a slice of cheese and a slice of olive. How fun is this meal?!
Homemade hamburger helper
When I was in middle school, my mom switched jobs and was teaching several nights a week at our local community college. This meant that I was in charge of dinner when she was teaching. When I first started being in charge of dinner for my dad, my sister, and me on those nights, I leaned heavily into boxed meals like Hamburger Helper. My dirty little secret is that I loved Hamburger Helper nights.
I still love Hamburger Helper, but I’ve upgraded to making a homemade version. It’s a great one to sneak some veggies into too – the kids have no idea they are eating zucchini! If you can get a fully balanced meal, including veggies, into your kids on Halloween night, you have won Halloween!
Other posts
If you are looking for other easy meal ideas, check out these posts:
I hope you all have a super fun Halloween! Let me know what you make for Halloween dinner by tagging me on Instagram @sarainseason.