I think there is something so much fun about themed dinners! We love having a bit of fun with presentation, especially around the holiday seasons. Halloween does get a little repetitive with the dinner ideas that I find on the internet, as they are primarily a lot of party food. So, this year, I have put together my own list of Halloween Dinner Ideas that are actual dinners, not just party food, to feed a family. We do have our best Halloween Lunchbox ideas and a list of Easy Spooky Halloween Treats, if you are looking for more inspo.
Jack-o-Lantern Stuffed Peppers
Stuffed bell peppers are often a classic when it comes to something fun to eat. You can stuff them with a variety of different things from just rice to meat. We do a sort of taco-rice situation, but start off by cutting up our bell peppers. Getting red or orange is the key to this one, then carving them with a knife so there are no seeds inside and they look like a jack-o-lantern. From there, you can then cook up your rice (or use leftover rice) before frying off your beef. I added a can of kidney beans, as that’s something we are eating more of, and our taco seasoning. When everything was cooked, I added in a can of chopped tomatoes and the rice, to create a mixture of it all, before grating in a handful of cheese. I then stuffed the peppers with a spoon, baking them in the oven (without the tops), before presenting them with a bit of salad. The inside of the peppers were delicious and quite filling as well! We are a big taco family, so this Halloween dinner idea is such a fantastic one for us.
Spooky Monster Burger
This Halloween dinner idea is one of those really effective ones, with just a dash of effort. We made up beef burgers, like we normally would, and provided the same toppings as usual. Instead of serving the burgers family style, I cut up some cheese to be the teeth (though, for people like myself and Robin who like cheese burgers anyway, our beef burgers still had cheese), then used a pickle as a tongue. For the eyes of the monster burger, I put some olives (stuffed worked best!) on tooth picks and stuck them in. As a sort of background to the eyes, I cut little slits into the burger bun to put tortilla chips into! I then served the rest of the tortilla chips on the side, with salsa, and some vegetables too. This one really impressed everyone and was so similar to the burgers we had in rotation anyway.
Deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie
This is one of those meals that a good cookie cutter does all of the real work. I made some pot pie filling by cooking up some chunks of chicken in olive oil, then setting it aside to add in carrots, onions, and celery. When it was cooked down a bit and softened, I added it to my chicken bowl to the side. In the same pot, I melted down some butter and added flour, to make a roux. Then, I slowly added chicken stock and a splash of milk, added back in the meat and vegetables, and seasoned with thyme and a bay leaf. I let everything cook together until thickened, added salt and pepper to taste, and threw a few handfuls of peas in as well. While everything was cooking, I took some puff pastry and cut out little pumpkins, putting them into the oven. You could make this a full pie with some puff pastry pumpkins on top, but we aren’t a big pie family, so like this one big “cracker” like topping to break up the texture!
Mummy and Ghost Meatballs
This Halloween dinner ideas is meatballs two ways. You can use pre-made meatballs or create your own, but once they are done, the important thing is to let them cool. Then, if you are going for the mummy meatball style, you want to wrap your cooled meatball with puff pastry, to make it mummy wrapped. This isn’t hard to do at all, but does take a bit of playing around. For the Ghost meatball, I took the meatballs and put them on a baking tray, with a slice of cheese over the top of each. I think this works best with burger cheese (instead of cheddar slices that don’t quite melt the same) and then I poked a little face in them after they melted. These meatballs go well on a bed of pasta, with some garlic bread on the side.
Spider Taco Bread
Another taco themed dinner on the Halloween Dinner ideas list! We do love tacos. This was a simple one; I took some beef and kidney beans and cooked them on the stove until browned, then added a bunch of taco seasoning. Once the meat was done, I took some pre-made crescent rolls and made a sort of circle with them, so that they had the pointy bit of the triangle out and the sort of side you roll from all connected, in a circle, like a wreath. I then filled it with the taco meat, folded over everything, and cut off the extra. For the legs, which, I will admit I did burn, I took this extra and made little legs. These do not take long to cook at all (something I should have realized), but we didn’t eat them so they didn’t matter much at all. Robin actually said she LOVED that they were colored legs. I then cut up some tomatoes and lettuce, to go in the middle, and used some jalapenos for eyes (though you could use olives). We cut up this bread, added guacamole and salsa to it, along with some hot sauce and taco sauce, before eating! This was served with a bunch of vegetables; beats, peppers, broccoli, which we all very much enjoyed.
Ghost Grilled Cheese
A bit of a smaller dinner, this ghostly grilled cheese is another example of a good cookie cutter going well! We toasted some cheese in the middle of two slices of bread, then pressed a cutter in the middle. You could keep off the crusts, if you want, but just having the shape was enough for me! We served this with some tomato soup, dressed up with circles of sour cream, that we then used a tooth pick to make into a spider web. You could also use double cream if you’d like. This is simple, a smaller dinner, but one that does feel seasoning despite the short amount of time that it takes to cook. If you are looking for some more soups for soup season, we have a post all about Our Family’s favorite Autumn Soups.