These Halloween cookie recipes are frighteningly delicious and will put you in the Halloween spirit whether you enjoy baking with spooky sprinkles or seasonal candy.
Looking for more Halloween recipes? Try these easy Halloween desserts, my favorite Halloween recipes and or these healthy Halloween snack ideas.
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Recipes for Halloween Cookies
These Halloween cookie recipes are boo-ti-ful and will bring spooky excitement to friends, family and parties this season. While Halloween often revolves candy, these cookies are scary-easy recipes that your ghosts and goblins will gobble up!
Complete your Halloween menu with Halloween pizzas and witches brew and if you are carving pumpkins at your Halloween party save the seeds for roasted pumpkin seeds.
Halloween Cookie Party Ideas
- Halloween cookie decorating party: Invite friends over to decorate Halloween cookies! Provide the sugar cookies and assign sprinkles, candy and frosting to friends.
- Halloween cookie swap: Similar to hosting a cookie exchange at Christmas, have one for swapping Halloween treats.
- Halloween no bake cookie party: You can still have fun without any cooking involved! Have friends over to make witch hat cookies or host a competition making a haunted Halloween gingerbread house.
- Halloween party food: I think no party is complete unless there are some other fun goodies, too! Round out the menu with Halloween Chex mix, Mummy dogs or Halloween puking pumpkin with guacamole.
Tips for Making Halloween Cookies
- Decorate with sprinkles: If your cookie didn’t turn out exactly how you like use fun Halloween sprinkles or match the icing to the sprinkles to cover up imperfections.
- Baking with sprinkles. If you are adding sprinkles to cookie dough, like I do with my chocolate chip cookies with sprinkles, use Jimmies or confetti sprinkles as they don’t bleed. Wait to press candy eyes on after baking.
- Piping bags. I love to use this sugar cookie icing with a piping bag but you can use an offset spatula or butter knife, too.
- Professional touch: Lean how to use royal icing! With a little practice your frosted Halloween cookies will look like they came from a bakery.
- Don’t over bake your cookies. To ensure your cookies stay soft, underbake them by 1 minute and then remove from the hot pan to the cooling rack as soon as possible.
- Chill dough. Most cookie dough can benefit from chilling in the fridge! If you love a chewy cookie that doesn’t spread, chill the dough for a few hours or overnight.
- Storing Halloween cookies: If your Halloween cookies are frosted avoid stacking them to prevent smushed designs.
Cute Halloween Cookies
I love these cute Halloween cookie ideas. If you need some additional treat ideas try easy Halloween Rice Krispie treats and Halloween cake pops, too!
- Witch Hat Cookies: All you need for these no-bake cookies are a pack of fudge striped cookies, Hershey Kisses, frosting and sprinkles.
- Gooey Butter Cookies: Turn my favorite cake mix cookie into a monster cookie with some food dye and candy eyes!
- BEST M&M Cookies: Swap original M&Ms for colorful seasonal colors in autumn hues!
- Halloween Chocolate M&M Cookies: Swap regular M&Ms for your favorite fall M&Ms to make these delicious chocolatey cookies!
- Chocolate Whoopie Pies: Simply tint the cream cheese frosting orange and these sandwich cookies will be the hit of the party!
- Oreo Cookie Spiders: Make cute spiders with your kids using Halloween Oreos, pretzels, candy corn, marshmallows and a dab of black frosting.
- Peanut Butter Pudding Cookie Monsters: Peanut butter pudding cookies get a festive update to them by adding Halloween jimmie sprinkles and candy eyes.
Spooky Halloween Cookies
If slightly spooky Halloween cookies are more your style, you will also love Graveyard dirt cake, strawberry ghosts and Halloween brownies, too!
- Spider Cookies: A fun twist on my peanut butter cup cookies these are spooky cute and tasty!
- Mummy cookies: These look so cute on a Halloween party treat table! Easy to make with Nutter Butter cookies, white chocolate and candy eyeballs.
- Peanut Butter Cup Eyeball Cookies. Use a white chocolate peanut butter cup and one spooky candy eyeball to make these!
- Frankenstein Halloween Cookies. Store-bought sugar cookie dough gets transformed with some green food dye, cut into shapes then decorated like Frankenstein!
Halloween Sugar Cookies
If you love Christmas sugar cookies, you will love to make Halloween sugar cookies with your kids! Add these Halloween Oreo Balls to your baking plans this season, too.
- Halloween Sugar Cookies: A family favorite! Use Halloween cookie cutters to cut the dough then frost and decorate. Perfect for classroom parties, school lunches and parties!
- Lofthouse Cookies. It’s easy to transform these homemade cookies into the ones your kids see at the store! Just tint your icing orange and decorate with Halloween sprinkles.
- Halloween Pumpkin Sugar Cookies: Soft orange sugar cookies, topped with a tuft green frosting and Brach’s candy pumpkin. Easy and adorable!
- Halloween Pinwheel Cookies. Choose fun Halloween colors like green and purple for these sugar cookies that rolled like pinwheels.
Halloween Cut-Out Cookies
I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t like cut-outs for Halloween or any other holiday cookie recipe!
- Pumpkin Cut Cookies: Grab your pumpkin cookie cutters to make these cut-out cookies and decorate them with fun Jack-o-lantern faces.
- Slice and Bake Halloween Cookies: The end result is worth it when making these from scratch slice and bake cookies!
- Halloween Chocolate Cookies. Switch up your normal sugar cookie dough for chocolate cut-out cookies!
- Halloween Cut-Out Cookies. Not a fan of sugar cookies? These cut-out cookies are made with mini chocolate chips!
Pumpkin Cookies and Cookies with Candy
Both adults and kids love these cookies made with seasonal ingredients or Halloween candy. You can also use leftover Halloween candy to make this Halloween candy popcorn!
- Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies: No Halloween cookie recipe list is complete without pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!
- Soft Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting: I love to add a mellowcreme pumpkin candy on top of these!
- Milky Way Cookies: One more reason to raid the kids Halloween candy haul!
- Twix Cookies: Just like your favorite candy bar but in a cookie.
- Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. Trade your kids for their miniature sized peanut butter cups and make these cookies pronto!
- Rolo Cookies. Easy chocolate cake mix cookies stuffed with a Rolo candy inside!
FAQs
Halloween cookie tools include seasonal Halloween cookie cutters, festive colored sprinkles, food dye in orange, green, purple, black and yellow plus seasonal Halloween candy.
Tools that come in handy when baking Halloween cookies include a stand mixer, measuring tools, frosting or piping bags and tips and spatulas. See each specific Halloween cookie recipe for more details.
I love to make Halloween cookies with candy! A few favorites include Milky way cookies, M&M cookies, Rolo cookies and Twix cookies. You can also use leftover caramels to make salted caramel chocolate chip cookies or decorate any soft sugar cookie with leftover Halloween candy.
This is easy to do! Keep it simple by adding seasonal sprinkles or make Halloween candy cookies with seasonal M&Ms or your favorite chopped candy bar.
Decorate cookies with candy corn, candy eyes or add fun frosting colors like yellow, orange or red to match the season. You can even dye some cookie dough.
It will depend on the Halloween cookie recipe but many can be made ahead of time, either 1-2 days in advance or you can freeze the cookie dough. Check the recipe card or storage area in each post for additional directions.
Some bar cookies for fall that would be great for any Halloween party or event include sugar cookie bars, congo bars, pumpkin blondies and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting.
Any of these fall bar cookies could be adapted with festive Halloween sprinkles, colored frosting or decorated with fall candy such as candy corn or seasonal M&Ms.
The Full List of Halloween Cookie Recipes
Can’t wait to get baking Halloween cookie recipes? Browse through the whole list!
Categorized as: American, Cookies, Halloween, Recipe Roundup
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
