A Jack-o-lantern Pumpkin-shaped cheese ball and mozzarella eyeballs will be the star of your Halloween-themed cheeseboard. These festive Halloween food ideas can be made in no time at all without any special things to buy!
A 3 ingredient Pumpkin Cheeseball is the centerpiece for an easy Halloween cheeseboard. This simple appetizer also has gummy eyeballs, pumpkin spice caramel to dip apples in, your favorite salami and some sweet praline pecans. This Halloween tray has everything you need for everyone’s snack favorites!
#HalloweenTreatsWeek not only has tons of Halloween party ideas for you but it also has an amazing giveaway too! Be sure to check out all the great prizes below!
This week’s recipes were all created for #HalloweenTreatsWeek. Many sponsors sent products to use in these recipes to make them. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.
You know how much I like easy Halloween Food Ideas that are super easy to do and still look like I did a lot of work on them. (Check out this Spooky 7 Layer Dip that also has easy tips for entertaining!)
Halloween Treats Week’s Jackolantern Cheeseball is a very easy appetizer that pairs nicely with all the sweets you have for your party. While I would love all the candy I like having some savory things and some sweet things to snack on.
Why the Cheeseball is great for Halloween Party Food Ideas
- easy to make
- no special ingredients to make it
- simple to shape into a festive pumpkin without spending any extra money
- A great halloween snack that isnt sweet! It’s all CHEESE!
You can’t beat any party appetizer that has only 3 ingredients. For real. This pumpkin cheese ball has cream cheese, cheddar cheese and garlic salt.
I did add a celery stalk for a stem but if you wanted to you could make that out of a small piece of cream cheese.
How to Make Halloween Cheeseball : Simple Halloween Recipe
- Let the cream cheese soften for about 30 minutes before you are ready to mix it and it’s much easier to get everything mixed well.
- In a pinch (or to save time) I’ve purchased pre-shredded cheese. Buy the largest shred you can find so it isn’t too dried out.
- Use any cheese you like- we love cheddar but I tried to buy the most orange color I could find to get it to look more like an orange jack-o-lantern.
- I used a Wilton disposable counter liner that was super helpful with cleanup. It even has a piece of tape that sticks to your counter to help it from slipping.
Need More Ideas for Halloween Food Ideas? We have lots of fun ideas! Check them all out here!
Variations on Halloween Cheeseballs
Spider Cheese Ball
You can Roll the cheese into a ball and flatten it. Coat it with chopped black olives for savory or chocolate chips for a sweet cheeseball. You can either use licorice to make the legs, or pretzels. Place big red eyes cut out of red pepper for the eyes
Halloween Skull Cheeseball
You can purchase a skull mold (affiliate link) to form the shape of the cheeseball. Line them with plastic wrap, then place the cheese inside to form and chill. Once chilled you can remove it and place it on a tray with pretzels around it
What other things can make up a Halloween Cheese Tray
- Caramel Dips – I used Caramel Apple dip from Lighthouse
- Gummy Eyeballs
- Pretzels
- Crackers
- Various Salami Selections
- Mozzarella Eyeballs
- Pecan Pralines (recipe coming soon!)
- Chips
- Mini Candy Bars
Use both sweet and savory interjecting festive items like the gummy eyeballs from Treat Street. Mixing both satisfies everyone’s cravings!
With all the fun treats available at Halloween the sky is the limit on your creativity!
Mozzarella Eyeballs: Festive Halloween Food Ideas
Mozzarella eyeballs are so easy to make! Buy the mini mozzarella balls and skewer them with a long pick. Cut olives into thin slices to look like the center of the eye. Sprinkle them throughout your cheese board!
More Halloween Cheeseball ideas for a Spooky Halloween Food Party
- Skull Cheeseball (easy ideas on pinterest to see how to carve them! )
- Mozzarella eyeballs– look how cute they are on this cheeseboard!
- Halloween Monster Cheese ball – you could line the outside with green onions to make it green and place candy eyeballs on the cheese ball
- Jack O Lantern Cheeseball – carve out eyes, nose and a mouth on the pumpkin cheese ball for this one!
- Ghost Cheese Ball – Probably the easiest one.. shape into a ghost shape and use black olives for eyes!
I was thrilled to use products in this post specifically from the following sponsors: Wilton, Treat Street USA and Lighthouse Foods. The gummy eyeballs are from Treat Street and the caramel apple dip is from Lighthouse foods! The counter liners as mentioned above were from Wilton.
The eyeballs are adorable and look for them in a Ghoul’s Blood Cocktail coming later this week. I cannot say enough how delicious the Pumpkin Spice Caramel dip was with the apples…. not one drop of it left!
More Easy Halloween Party Food Ideas
- Spooky 7 Layer Dip
- Creepy Eyeball Meatballs
- Ghost Dip
- Mummy Cheese Bread
- Chocolate Dipped Halloween Cones
- Ghoul’s Blood Cocktail
- Scary Eyeball Popcorn Balls
- The Scream Brownies
- Halloween Bark
- Halloween Chex Mix
Pumpkin Cheese Ball for a party tray
A Jackolantern/Pumpkin shaped cheese ball and mozzarella eyeballs will be the star of your Halloween themed cheeseboard. These festive Halloween food ideas can be made in no time at all without any special things to buy!
Ingredients
- 8 ounce package Cream Cheese, softened for 30 minutes on counter
- 8 ounces Cheddar Cheese, shredded
- 1 Teaspoon Garlic Salt
- 1 stalk Celery
Instructions
- Shred cheese.
- In a small bowl sprinkle garlic salt over softened cream cheese, then add 2/3 of the shredded cheese on top.
- Using a wooden spoon stir to mix all together until well combined.
- Shape cream cheese into a ball and flatten slightly to look like a pumpkin shape. Using your fingers make a small groove about 1" apart all the way around.
- Place the remaining shredded cheese on a plate.
- Gently roll the now pumpkin shaped cheeseball to coat all sides.
- Cut a 2-inch long stem out of the celery.
- Place at the top of the cheese ball
- Can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve.
- Can be made up to 5 days ahead of time.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 143Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 38mgSodium: 318mgCarbohydrates: 2gFiber: 0gSugar: 1gProtein: 6g
This recipe was calculated using the exact brands and measurements I used to make this recipe. If you are following a strict diet please note changing anything will cause the nutritional info to change. Please calculate your own nutritional information if you want it exact to what you make and use my calculations as a guide only.
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Jeff
Tuesday 8th of October 2019
What a great idea! I'm going to make a pumpkin cheese ball for Thanksgiving too!