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A once teeming, lively front garden turned into a haunting ‘trick-or-treat’ zone—this is the spooky vibe we’re setting for Halloween. We’ve put together a list of favourite ideas to achieve this, including yummy grilled foods to feast on. They might help you get that creep factor, too, especially if you take BBQ parties seriously!
Spookify the Garden
There are many boo-tiful, classic Halloween party themes you can consider to set the mood in your front garden. But there’s one concept that can bring everyone together: a gory graveyard. This setup lets you deck your space with various creatures and decor related to zombies, ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, mummies, banshees, and more. After all, where else can you encounter them other than in a cemetery, aka your garden? Just a motif, though!
From here, decorate your garden to match the concept. Set up the zombies to look like they’re rising from the ground—a classic move. Hang some white sheets from trees or stakes for the ghosts, and don’t forget the skeletons. You can mix in some ghouls or creepy creatures to give it that haunted-gathering vibe.
Toilet paper is perfect for making mummies. Just wrap it around some figures and set them up near your tombstones, fences, or branches. Go the extra mile with sound effects or decorations that scream when people get too close. You can add more creatures if you wish; the merrier, the better, and the creepier!
Tip: If time allows, go for the DIY route to save money and get more creative with your designs. Let the kids join the decorating process, too. Assign them to put up cobwebs, paint tombstones, and sneak in skulls and arm bones crawling out of the flowerbed.
Set up the Trick-Or-Treat Zone
Once your gory graveyard space is ready, pull out your folding garden table and place it in the corner or the centre. This will be the trick-or-treat zone, where kids and adults can grab their Halloween goodies.
Style the table by covering it with dark tablecloth or black fabric, then layer it with some artificial spider webs on the table and let them drape over the edges. Set up some battery-operated candles and add a sign that says, ‘Spooktacular Treats!’ Make it glow in the dark with a fun DIY project so the fun continues even when the lights go out. You can also line the pathway to the zone with more flickering and faux candles.
It’s up to you and the kids how to fill the rest of the space according to the theme.
Fire Up the Grill!
A Halloween BBQ party isn’t complete without the barbecue itself. Since you’ve gone all in, why not add some themed grilled treats for your guests as well? Here are some scary barbecue food ideas to make in your charcoal BBQ, gas grill, or pizza oven:
Jack O’lantern mini cheeseburgers
These Jack O’Lantern mini cheeseburgers are one of my favourite Halloween treats! They’re super easy to make, and so much fun to cut the cheese into cute Jack O’Lantern faces. You can even let your guests get creative and design their own cheddar cheese faces. Set up the buns and all the toppings, including some “blood” (aka ketchup), on the table while you focus on the grill.
Mini cheeseburgers are perfect as treats for kids out for trick-or-treating. If you’ve got family and friends coming over, feel free to whip up some big ones, too!
Dead Man’s fingers
Here’s another creative, eerie-ish appetiser to serve at your Halloween BBQ party: little sausages cut to look like fingers! Stand them upright on the cutting board. Grab a small, sharp knife and hold it at a diagonal angle to shave off about 1/2 inch from the top to create the fingernail. Then, lay the sausage flat and cut two slits below the nail and three slits on the other end to make the finger and knuckle creases. Onto the grill, they go!
Mummy pizza
This is the perfect time to make use of your portable pizza oven and recreate these mummy pizzas. This Halloween BBQ food is quick to make, and they’re a delightful and fun snack that kids will love! You’ll need seven ingredients for this recipe:
- Pizza dough or sliced bread for the body
- Your choice of pizza sauce to spread on the mummy before adding the toppings
- Shredded mozzarella cheese, which will act as the layers the mummy is ‘covered’ in
- Meat like cooked sausage (if you have extra from the Dead Man’s Fingers), salami, pepperoni, or ham to make these mini pizzas more filling
- Sliced green olives to create olive spiders
- Candy eyeballs for the final touch on these Halloween pizza mummies
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to make them, courtesy of Goodness Avenue.
Mozzarella and olive eyeballs
These eyeball treats are made using mozzarella balls as the “eyeball” base and olives on top as the “pupil.” To prepare, take small mozzarella balls and slice black olives into rings. Pop an olive slice on top of each mozzarella ball to make them look like eyes.
You can add a bit of red food colouring or sauce to make them look bloodshot, or you can serve them on a plate with some marinara sauce for a creepier effect. Poke these tasty eyeballs with toothpicks so they’re easy to pick up and eat. Kids might line up for this one in your trick-or-treat zone!
Bat wings
If you or your guests prefer chicken instead of red meat, you’ve got to try this! Prepare chicken wings, your favourite BBQ sauce, and a little black food colouring.
Grill the wings until they’re golden and crispy so the meat falls off the bone. Mix the black food colouring into your BBQ sauce and drizzle it over the wings to turn them into bat wings. They’re juicy, crispy, and a bit spooky—perfect for Halloween! Serve them with salted fries and a side salad for a complete meal.
Candy apples
Got room for dessert? Even though they’re not grilled, candy apples are a favourite treat and make the perfect ending for your Halloween BBQ event.
These sweet apples are covered in a delicious sugary syrup that everyone will love. You can even decorate them with icing. For a spooky twist, use the black food colouring from the bat wings recipe to dye your sugar mixture and make your candy apples look poisonous. They’ll be a hit, and your guests might even feel like they’re under a spell, coming back for more!
Phantom Pub Corner
Halloween night is for everyone, so it’s only fair for adults to have their corner treat, too! Set up a mini bar using your garden furniture, like your patio tables. One for prepping the drinks and another for guests to grab their Witch’s brew, blood orange Vampire punch, and that bloody martini.
Take a cue from the BillyOh Nightjar Garden Bar. Its L-shaped design maximises over 1m² of counter space while fitting into a 1.2×1.2m corner. You can set up 3 to 4 bar stools around this mini-bar, which stands at 1.0m tall. Add eerie, dim lighting under the bar, drape some fake cobwebs and throw in a few plastic spiders.
These pub shed ideas can give you more inspiration if you’re thinking about making one a permanent fixture in your garden.
May you come up with the spookiest Halloween BBQ party that will be the talk of the town with these ideas! Here’s more for the upcoming cheery season: 15 Festive Barbecue Ideas
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