Ever since the start of October, we’ve been completely and utterly obsessed with all things Halloween (understandably so!). You might be used to celebrating Halloween in the hours of the night, but what about in the morning? Say around brunch time? From pumpkin spiced donuts to haunting mimosas, we have your guide to the spookiest Halloween brunch yet. Making everything Halloween-themed is sooo in. We have all the tips on costumes, food, drinks, and more so that you can host, or attend, a thrilling brunch with your friends.
Costume ideas for a Halloween brunch
The first thing to tackle in this guide is costumes. You could go a few different routes for this by either making it easy and telling your guests to show up in any costume they want, or spice things up a little bit with a group costume/theme for the brunch. To make it extra spooky, you could tell everyone to go on the haunted route, and for that, you could suggest being a vampire, witch, zombie, mummy, or anything else that fits in this category. This would create a fun theme that you could then base your drinks, food, decor, and activities around to have a consistent theme for the brunch.
On the other hand, since the party is a brunch and during the daylight, you could also opt for a lighter theme like the friend group’s favorite movie and dress as those characters. Try dressing as characters from Alice in Wonderland, there are so many to choose from! For the food, it would be really fun to have dishes in relation to the movie like an actual tea party, Eat Me and Try Me cookies, and boozy drinks in potion bottles — the possibilities are endless.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because you can dress up as whoever or whatever you want and have the freedom to express yourself. Having a Halloween brunch is a fun plan that you can make feel as haunted (or not) as you want.
Amp up your Halloween brunch with some activities!
It’s always fun to pick an activity or two for a brunch party to keep everyone entertained. A fun and Halloween-themed activity could be painting or carving pumpkins. Buy mini pumpkins at the grocery store and some paint or carving tools from the dollar store and everyone can paint, sip, n’ carve. It’s a fun activity that can be made Instagram-able since the lighting is good during the day — one of the best times to have a fun photoshoot outside with your latest piece of art.
Another fun activity is a Halloween-themed card game. There are plenty of Halloween board and card games in pretty much any store during this month, and you’ll definitely find one, or ten, that you and your friends would enjoy playing. You could also make your own game and rate everyone's costumes, count up the votes, and give the winner some sort of spooky prize. This will definitely encourage your friends to be on their best costume behavior.
If you’re going for a movie-themed costume brunch, you’ve got to have a bingo game tailored to the movie! Easily create one online using Canva, or you can find pre-made boards at online shops. This makes for a fun, easy, and exciting activity that, once again, calls for winners, so your friends will have fun fighting to win the spooky prizes.
Foods to have at your Halloween brunch
Now, for the best part of the guide: the food! The best thing about brunch is the mix of breakfast and lunch, duh. The world is truly your oyster. From waffles to spooky omelets and cider donuts, you can make whatever you want for this brunch. Something that’s easy to make, delicious, and fall-inspired are some pumpkin pancakes. This Spoon University recipe is absolutely delicious and has all the fall flavors. Before the brunch party, you and some friends can even make a trip to the nearest apple orchard to buy some fresh apples for the recipe.
A fall and Halloween-inspired snack that's a must-serve are pumpkin seeds! Everyone can carve their own pumpkin, and then scoop out their seeds to roast for the perfect snack. It's easy: just throw the pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet, add some olive oil, garlic salt, paprika, and pepper, then roast them. There you have it, an easy and delicious Halloween snack.
For the next dish, you can get creative and make a spooky acai bowl. This recipe from The Vegan Spoon includes delicious fresh fruits and yogurt. Top the bowl off with frosting the design of a spider web on top. It's the perfect meal for a Halloween brunch, IMO. You can also add small plastic spider decor to top the bowl with as well. Of course, the spiders are not edible, but the little decorations make the bowl spooky.
Get a couple dozen spooky donuts from Dunkin’ to make for a delicious dessert at your party, and all you have to do is pick up the donuts and you have yourself a classic dessert that everyone will love. Another must-have dessert to serve are the Pillsbury mini sugar cookies with Halloween graphics on them. These are a crowd pleaser and decorative at the same time. Who doesn’t love a yummy buttery cookie with a pumpkin stamped on it?
Get boozy with these spooky drinks
For drinks, you have the opportunity to be really creative and make some spooky potions for your guests. A Bloody Mary bar is a tasty and fun mini-activity if your friends want to create their own drink. Buy any ol’ Bloody Mary mix, fill each cup up with the mix, rim the cup with spicy tajin for an extra kick of spice, and make a bar for your friends to add in whatever they’d like in their drink. For my 21+ crew, you can have vodka for your guests to add in, if they really want to get the party started bright and early on Halloween. Have a variety of hot sauces out for everyone to add in, and you can get creative with which flavored hot sauces you have available — from Tabasco’s Chipotle Pepper Sauce to Melinda’s Ghost Pepper Sauce, your guests will love all the choices. Lastly, have an ample amount of garnishes for your guests to top their drinks off. This is where the drink comes to life. Put gummy eyeball candies on toothpicks for guests to top their drink off, or simply some stocks of celery for a more classic Bloody Mary. To add to the smoky and spicy vibe, have some hot peppers out for the ultimate scary mary.
Another option is to have spooky mimosas, and this recipe from Fresh Coast Eats looks like the perfect one to make. This takes little effort because you only need a couple of ingredients. Get your flutes out, and add in some champagne. To add a haunted twist, get plastic syringes off of Amazon or at any Halloween store, and fill them with some grenadine. It will look like a haunted potion and your guests can add in their grenadine once they are ready to start having drinks. It’s the perfect brunch drink for Halloween this year, and makes for a cute set-up, too. Having this build-a-drink bar will be a fun and tasty activity for your Halloween brunch of the century.
Decor — it’s the most important part of the brunch.
The last part of this guide is the decor. Because what’s a Halloween brunch without some boo-tiful decor? First, you need pumpkins galore. This time of year, pumpkins are sold at basically any and every grocery store around town. You can find pumpkins at Trader Joe’s, and get enough to make your space feel Halloween-esque.
Go to the nearest dollar store to you and find decorations like napkins with spiders on them, spider webs (and lots of it) to add to your tables, and more. If you’re a maximalist, opt for a smoke machine to really bring the haunty vibe.
Try making a cheesecloth ghost, the latest trend all over our TikTok For You Pages — this will make for the perfect addition anywhere in your home during this brunch. The decor is arguably the most important part of hosting a Halloween brunch – so you’ve got to be prepared.