Fun Halloween Mystery Dinner Party

The Menu Meddler and Dinner Dabbler teamed up to stir up trouble with this spooky menu just in time for Halloween!

Feeling mysteriously hungry? :)

Years ago, my brilliantly creative mom and I came up with a fun menu for an awesome Halloween mystery dinner party. It was a hit with my twenty-something friends! Whether you plan to entertain kids or adults, this meddlesome menu will add some bewitching charm to your event. I provide our "interpretation" of the menu items, but as always, we encourage you to experiment with your own favorite finger foods and mystery names for them!

First thing we had to do was hide the kitchen. Tack down a wire and use clothespins to hang sheets from it. If you have Halloween sheets, all the better! Of course this provides little protection from the zealously curious youngsters that still peep through, but some sort of divider is vital to keeping the menu a mystery.

Warning: Be prepared to make a big mess!

My prep advice is to grab everything that can be set out and have it ready. Plan ahead to get the items that need to be cooked done in time for the dinner. Once your menu orders start coming, they'll pile up quick. Be sure to give yourself a "plating area"—room where you can set a plate down as you get it ready. It's super helpful to have food items organized so you can fill a plate quickly and get it back to the table of hungry little monsters.

If you are throwing a kid party, enlisting the help of some extra parents is a wise move.

Another tip: My mom is queen of collecting disposable to-go and single-serving dishes. These include little paper fry boats, plastic fry sauce cups, various-size to-go boxes, etc. These types of items come in extremely handy for dinners like this!

Rules of the Game

The guests receive their own menu and a marking device. Each guest writes their name on the menu (or you won't know who to return the order to). We placed each menu in a sheet protector and had the kids use erasable markers. When the menu is sent back to the kitchen, it can only have three items checked at a time. As soon as every menu has been to the kitchen once, guests can reorder as many times as they want, three items at a time!

Suggestion: Have people write numbers: three 1's for the first order, three 2's for the second, etc. to keep the orders in order!

It's really fun to watch guests react to the results of their selection. Pretty soon, after enough items come out to the table, people figure out the menu, but at least the first round of orders provides a good chuckle—or groan! Guests can reorder items they've already eaten, they just have to make it clear on the menu.

It gets really tricky, as you can imagine, guessing how much of each food item to have on hand so you don't run out. We had loads of leftovers, but hey—that means everyone who wanted to got to leave with a to-go container(s) of their favorite goodies! :)

Main Course

These are the items that require the most preparation, so be sure everything else is ready and time yourself to have these menu items hot and ready to serve when dinner begins.

Chopped Beetles in Mummy Shrouds (Taco meat in corn tortilla)

If you microwave the tortillas layered between moist paper towels, the tortillas will be less likely to split in half. Mix refried beans with the seasoned ground beef to make the filling go a bit farther.

Bloody Fried Fossils (Ketchup with dino-shape chicken nuggets)

These nuggets are the best! Maybe not necessarily for your health, but they're the best for fun dinners.

Moldy Mummy Toes (Lil' Smokies wrapped in crescent roll)

Cut strips of dough from each crescent triangle and wrap around each lil smokies dog. Bake according to crescent roll directions. Serve with ketchup.

I started wrapping two smokies in one crescent until my mom showed me how she envisioned the mummy toes. Both ways work, but I admit the individually wrapped smokies are cuter!

Bloody Brains (Spaghetti with meat sauces)

Just your typical red sauce on spaghetti! (Omit meat for vegetarian option.)

Sides

Sticks in Your Eye (Scoop of pretzel dip with stick pretzels stuck in it all around with an olive pressed in the center)

I love this side, but not too many kids ended up going for it. Serve in plastic sauce cup.

Frankenstein Teeth (Tater tots) (Don't forget these also require some of the prep time in your oven!)

Serve with ketchup.

Vampire Stake (Breadstick with garlic seasoning)

We used pre-baked breadsticks from the store, spread on some butter, sprinkled garlic salt, and heated them 3 minutes in the oven as directed. For kids we sliced the breadstick in half with a diagonal cut so the "stake" looked sharp. Serve whole for adults.

Mummy Skins & Hot Lava (Chips and salsa)

We used little fry boats to serve some of the items, chips and salsa included.

Sweet n' Salty

Mom just divided the rest of the menu into sweet and salty, but I would've made another category called Desserts, so it would have been divided: Main Courses, Sides, Sweet n' Salty Snacks, Desserts, Beverages. Or you can be mean and mix the items all up without headings and see how lucky (or unlucky) people guess! "Here are your three beverages for dinner!" :)

Pumpkin Poo (Cheetos)

Care Bear Poo (Rainbow chocolate chips)

Chances are there was a wedding in your life recently where, sadly, they served those pastel-color chocolate chips with white-sprinkle bases. This is the perfect recycle use for those plenteous leftovers!

Ghost Poo (Popcorn)

It just never gets old to hear people crack up about poo—and this time about eating it!

Night Crawlers (Jell-O worms; gummy worms)

Use stretched-out bendable-neck straws for the realistic earthwormy effect!

If you've never seen how to make Jell-O worms, here, visit this other site that already has all the instructions written out. Or take the easy route and buy gummy worms!

Werewolf Fingernails (Bugles chips)

Frog Legs (Baby pickles)

La Brea Tar Pits (Chocolate pudding with animal crackers)

Wish I'd gotten a quick pic of these, but the wild fun had already begun! Serve in plastic sauce cups. Scoop a spoonful of chocolate pudding into the cup and stick a couple animals "in the mud!"

Like this, except animal crackers IN the pudding.

Pirate Planks and Boo Juice (Graham crackers and milk)

Bloody Twisted Veins (Red licorice vines)

Devil's Inferno (Red hot candies—hot tamales, red hots, etc.)

Slimy Swamp Grass (Salad with dressing)

Dye the ranch dressing bright green if you want!

Skeleton Fingernails (String cheese and almonds)

We forgot to include these on the menu, so we had a lot of string cheese left over. :) One string cheese cut in half and the half cut into four makes eight "fingers" from one string cheese. Stuff almond slices into the end and serve in plastic sauce cup.

Ghosts in the Graveyard (Scoop of ice cream covered in Oreo crumbs and topped with decorative ghost) (Dessert)

Meringue Ghost Recipe. Hey, pretty much there are no new ideas . . . just new twists to the same old ideas, right? That's what this blog is all about. So if someone else already wrote it the old way, I send you there. No need to redo the work! Make sure your egg whites get really stiff so you don't end up with what look like snowmen on a warm day!

Frozen Tombstone (Ice cream sandwich cut in half) (Dessert)

Decorate the sandwich half with goofy writings in frosting.

Ground Grasshoppers (Mint chocolate chip ice cream) (Dessert)

Make sure you don't serve this scoop all rounded off and looking like actual ice cream. Scoop the ice cream and then stab it with a fork until it looks more like ground grasshoppers. It may prove cathartic after filling the twentieth menu order!

Beverages

Mad Scientist Brew (Soda with a chip of dry ice)

Serve in clear cup . . . or test tube vials if you have those kicking around like my mom does. (Truest queen of food containers, I avow.) We cut slits into the bottom of small plastic cups, turned those cups upside-down, and served the vial suspended upright in the cup holder. That proved to be VERY little beverage, so we started serving the soda in regular cups with the test tube as just described inside the cup.

As always, use caution with dry ice!

Haunted Spirit Tears (Sprite)

Ghost Blood (Water or milk)

Murky Moat Water (Chocolate milk)

Mom hot-glued spider rings to the bottom of the paper cups so the drinker would have a startling surprise after a few gulps!

Witch's Brew (Root beer)

Ghost in Witch's Brew (Root beer float)

Here's a peek into the kitchen sometime after the mystery dinner began:

And, if dinner wasn't enough for one night, stay tuned for a post about party activities you can involve the kids in while food is being prepared in the kitchen. No doubt, you'll be the hippest Halloween dinner party thrower on the block that people will brag about for years to come!