Want to surprise your little ones with a spooky and fun lunch this year? I have 15+ awesome Halloween lunchbox ideas that even adults will envy. From coffin sandwiches to the Nightmare Before Christmas themed foods, there’s something for every kid on this list.
15+ Halloween Lunchbox Ideas to Surprise Your Kids
1. Coffin Sandwiches
Make your child’s favorite sandwich and cut it into the shape of a coffin (pumpernickel rye bread works best). Grab some alphabet cookie cutters and use them to cut RIP out of cheese to add to the coffin.
Add whatever other goodies you want to the lunchbox to make it extra special.
Related: The Ultimate List of Halloween Party Recipes
2. Frankenstein School Lunch
How cute is this lunch? It’s easier than you think to make.
To bring Frankenstein to life, you’ll need spinach wrap tortillas, nori for his hair and mouth, cheese slices for the eyes, black olives for the pupils, and turkey to fill the tortilla.
Add some Halloween-themed pretzels and cookies along with raisins and dried mango pieces.
3. Skeleton and Ghost Themed Lunch
Here’s a fun idea that takes just a few key ingredients you probably already have. Use a skull-shaped cookie cutter to cut your sandwich bread, meat and cheese into this spooky shape. Cut holes in the top piece of bread to add candy eyes. Wrap an apple in a paper towel and add some eyes and a mouth to make a ghost.
Add any other spooky treats you want to the box.
4. Nightmare Before Christmas Lunch
Who doesn’t love The Nightmare Before Christmas? This will easily be one of your kids’ favorite Halloween lunchbox ideas.
To recreate this at home, you’ll need some creative cutting skills.
Start by adding layers of cheese to the main compartment. Top with some black beans. Take a tortilla and cut the shape of Jack’s face.
Next, use some green food coloring to dye yogurt green, and add some blank sprinkles to make an Oogie Boogie-themed treat.
Now, cut out the face of a jack-o-lantern into an orange sweet pepper. Fill the holes with pieces of black olives, and place the pepper over a bed of black olives in the last compartment.
This lunch will take some creativity and effort, but I promise you, it will make your kid’s day.
5. Halloween Bento Box
I love this bento box idea for Halloween. It has a pumpkin sandwich, ghost string cheese, creepy finger snacks and a tasty pudding dessert.
You can make any kind of sandwich you want, and then use a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter to transform it into a pumpkin.
Next, make the bloody finger snacks out of baby carrots. Cut out little indents for the fingernails, which you’ll use celery for. Add a little ranch dip to “glue” the celery “nails” to the carrots.
Grab some string cheese that’s still in its package and use a black marker to draw on eyes and a mouth (to the package).
Finish off with the graveyard dessert. Scoop some chocolate pudding into the compartment, and top with crushed Oreos and candy worms or gummy bugs.
6. Spooky Bento Box
For this lunchbox idea, you’ll need sandwich cutters to make cute little critter-shaped sandwiches. Use your knife skills to carve in faces to make them even spookier (or cuter).
Add baby carrots and other Halloween-themed treats to complete this meal.
7. Harry Potter Lunch
Fans of the Harry Potter world will love this lunchbox theme. Start by making a sandwich (whatever type you want) and top the sandwich with a few slices of white cheese to make the owl’s head and body. Add two circles of white cheese for the face and two smaller circles of cheddar for the eyes.
Raisins are perfect for his eyebrows, beak and eyes.
To make the Hogwart’s invitation letter, cut the shape out of a tortilla. Use an apple slice for the seal.
Add pretzel sticks and other little snacks to the other compartments. You can even dip a gummy frog in melted chocolate if you want to take this to the next level.
8. Jack-o-Lantern Lunch
If you’re looking for simpler Halloween lunchbox ideas, you’ll love this one. It uses black olives to make jack-o-lantern faces and sprinkles to add some flair to yogurt or pudding. Add the black olive face pieces to the top of your sandwich. Get as silly or as creative as you want.
Add some carrot sticks to the mix to complement the orange theme.
Related: 17+ Creepy Halloween Appetizer Recipes for Your Party
9. Jack Skellington Lunch
This Nightmare Before Christmas lunchbox adds Zero the dog into the mix. Start by making a turkey sandwich (or any kind of sandwich) and place it in the main compartment along with some grapes.
Cut provolone cheese into the shape of the head, ears and body of Zero. You can use a grape tomato for his nose and use a toothpick to keep it in place.
Be sure to follow Lunchbox Dad’s tutorial to learn how to make Jack’s face and the little pumpkin orange snack.
10. Pumpkin Themed Lunch
Your kids will adore this pumpkin-themed lunch, with a jack-o-lantern sandwich, Babybel Dracula snacks and a cute pumpkin tray filled with grapes and cheese. Add apple slices, animal crackers and snap peas for a balanced lunch that’s spooky and fun.
You can make any kind of sandwich you want for this lunch or customize the other ingredients. Sometimes, just adding a few Halloween-themed elements is all you need to make the lunch special.
11. RIP Sandwiches and Monster Cookies
How cute are these sandwiches? They’re so easy to make. Just use a sharp knife (with caution) to cut out the coffin and tombstone shapes. Use alphabet cookie cutters to make the RIP out of cheese.
Add some Milano cookies to one compartment and top with candy monster eyes (I recommend using a dab of melted chocolate to “glue” the eyes to the cookie). Add a peeled orange to the last compartment of the lunchbox to complete this meal.
12. Frankenstein and Friends
This spooky lunchbox is adorable and easy to make! Use spinach tortilla wraps to make Frankenstein’s head. Add nori to make his hair and candy eyes. Cut grapes in half and add candy eyes to those to make little monster eyes.
Finish off this lunchbox with a Frankenstein Babybel cheese wedge, pumpkin-shaped pretzels and slices of cucumber.
13. Boo Box
Fun Halloween lunchbox ideas don’t have to be overcomplicated. You can create discs out of banana slices and make little webs with honey. Make B O O cookies for your kids using these fun cookie cutters.
And then you can make mummy hotdogs by cutting strips of puff pastry, wrapping them around the hotdogs and then baking them.
14. Skull Lunchbox
A lot is going on with this lunchbox, but the main draw is really the skull on the left side. You’ll need your kids’ favorite bread and a little bit of cutting skill to get this just right. You can also use a large skull cookie cutter and it may do the trick.
Cut out circles for the eyes and then make a sandwich like you normally would.
Place a tomato on the top layer so that it’s showing through the eye holes and then place a gummy worm slithering through the eye. Use a food coloring dye pen (food grade) to paint on the nose and mouth.
For the rest, just add Oreo cookies, grapes and some strawberries.
It’s a simple but fun lunchbox idea that kids will appreciate.
15. Mummies in a Blanket
Spooky raspberries with eyes, peppers, puff pastry, sausages and eye picks are all you need to recreate this box. You’ll need to:
- Cut strips of your puff pastry
- Wrap the strips of the pastry around the sausage
- Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F or until thoroughly cooked
For the rest of the box, it’s self-explanatory and super easy to make with the eye picks.
16. Maple and Mango
What a cute, easy lunchbox to put together. You’ll need candy eyes as well as:
- Caramel popcorn
- White popcorn
- Blueberries
- Hardboiled egg
- Babybel cheese
- Cucumber slices
- Mini carrots
- Cookie with white frosting.
Add your eyes to the cookies, popcorn and babybel cheese. Cut a mouth out of the wax cheese cover and add a face to the egg using a black food coloring pen.
17. Zombie and Mummy
Halloween lunchbox ideas with zombies and mummies in a bento box are going to be the talk of the lunch table. You’ll need to get creative for this one:
- Zombie: Use a green spinach wrap and fill it with your kid’s favorite foods. Add carrot shreds for hair, make a mouth out of carrot sticks and then eyeballs out of white cheese and sliced olives.
- Mummy: Use a flour tortilla for the mummy, cheese from the bandages and eyes from cheddar cheese and red bell peppers.
You can then fill the remaining compartments with bat biscuits (use these molds) and other goodies.
Related: How to Throw a Killer Halloween Party on a Budget
18. Freightful Dog Bento Box
Bento boxes are always fun, cute ideas for a Halloween lunchbox. You’ll need a slice of marbled rye bread, Jicama and a small tomato to make Zero the ghost dog. You can then add anything else you like:
- Raspberries
- Tomatoes
- Greek yogurt with honey in an orange glass
- Babybel cheeses
And to really make this an unforgettable lunch box, be sure to make the Jack Skellington out of a marshmallow.
