Turn delicious appetizers into creepy-looking eyeballs. Making Eyeball Appetizers and Desserts for Halloween is so much fun. See how to decorate your favorite recipes to look like eyes.
The year we hosted our Dead Man's Diner Party, I had a few friends in the diner kitchen preparing food as our guests ordered from the diner menu. I knew we couldn't prepare all of the food for our 80 guests during the party, so I decided to serve our appetizers on a buffet table.
I wanted a quick and easy way to prepare a lot of appetizers that fit our theme. My solution was to turn everything into an EYE. I combined store-bought items with gourmet recipes to create eye-shaped appetizers.
It was so easy to turn pizzas, dips, and more into eyeballs.
Eyeball Pizza
I always try to have some type of pizza at my parties and turning a pizza into an eye is so super simple by adding chopped meat (I used salami), chopped olives, and strips of roasted red peppers to a cheese pizza.
You can use store-bought cheese pizza, top a store-bought pizza crust, or make homemade pizzas.
Make the pupil using olives.
To make a pizza eyeball, top a store-bought pizza crust with sauce and cheese.
Set a small round cookie cutter in the center of the pizza with a larger one around it.
Put chopped black olives in the center circle to create the pupil.
Create the iris.
Fill the larger round cookie cutter with chopped green olives or chopped meat like bacon, pepperoni, or salami.
Remove the cookie cutters.
Make veins using roasted red peppers.
Cut a roasted red pepper into thin strips. Place the strips in squiggle patterns around the border of the pizza to create the blood-shot veins.
Bake.
Bake on a pizza stone or directly on the oven rack for 6-9 minutes in a 425-degree oven. To crisp up the crust and get the cheese really nice and bubbly, heat the pizza under the broiler for 30-60 seconds.
Serve hot.
Eyeball Egg-in-a-Hole
In the diner, we served Eyeball egg-in-a-hole. We cut a hole out of bread, set the bread in a skillet, poured in an egg, and fried it. We dipped a toothpick in black liquid food coloring and poked it into the middle of the egg yolk to make a pupil.
Then we piped on ketchup veins. They looked so cool and tasted great too.
We served them along with Hand-Burgers with Finger Fries, Pizza Skulls, Grilled Feet (feet-shaped grilled cheese), and Lung Calzones.
The rest of the eyeball appetizers we served were hurriedly put together by me and my friends just before our guests arrived.
I wish we had spent more time making them look better, but they impressed our party guests and were gobbled up very quickly. The pictures aren't great either as they were quickly snapped before our guests arrived.
If you make them, take a little more time to make them look more realistic. The desserts I share below the appetizer eyeballs look better! I hope you enjoy those too.
Pop-Eye Spinach Artichoke Dip
I turned a store-bought spinach/artichoke dip into an eyeball by simply adding a black olive pupil, store-bought green pesto iris, and roasted red pepper veins.
I served it hot in a small fondue pot.
Madeira Mushroom & Roast Beef Eyeball
I had to have one gourmet recipe for my party. I baked Madeira Mushrooms, roasted red peppers, Brie, Prosciutto, and roast beef in a springform pan, then topped it with melted mozzarella cheese, more mushrooms, and black olives.
This eyeball appetizer was so popular that several people asked for the recipe. I didn't have one. I literally made it up as I cooked and didn't keep notes.
Biscuit-Wrapped Meatball Eyeballs
We covered frozen meatballs in store-bought biscuit dough and baked them at 350 degrees until they were golden brown.
Then we added a small spoonful of green pesto for the iris and topped that with a small black olive pupil and tomato sauce veins.
Cheesy Bean Dip Eyeball
Super easy bean dip (re-fried beans mixed with Velveeta and salsa) is topped with sour cream, leaving a small round exposed as the brown iris.
Chopped black olives form the pupil and enchilada sauce is piped on to create the blood-shot veins.
Hot Chicken Dip Eyeball
We can't have a party without my family's favorite hot chicken dip, so I turned it into an eye by adding cracker crumbs for the iris (plain) and pupil (wheat) and roasted red pepper strips for the veins.
So, as you can see, you can simply transform any of your favorite appetizer recipes into an eye by adding a pupil, iris, and blood-shot veins.
Eyeball Desserts
We also served some eyeball-shaped desserts at this Halloween party. These were all made ahead of the party so I had time to really make them look like eyeballs.
Creme Brulee Pie Eyeball
I served this delicious Creme Brulee Pie Eyeball at our party and my guests went crazy. I only had one pie (along with lots of other desserts) and guests were lined up to get a slice.
Peanut Butter P-Eye
I also served a homemade peanut butter pie that I decorated like an eyeball using whipped cream and red icing.
You can find the recipe for this pie in my cookbook, Hungry Halloween. You'll also find lots of other recipes I made for our Dead Man's Diner party in that book too.
Eyeball Popcorn Balls
How fun are these popcorn balls decorated like eyeballs? I loved making them. They'd be great to give out as party favors. Just package them in clear cellophane bags or plastic wrap.
Cheesecake Eyeballs
I used the filling from my favorite cheesecake recipe to make these eyeball-shaped cheesecakes. I made them using half-sphere silicone molds. I colored the cheesecake filling black and blue and painted it into the mold to create the pupil and iris. I then froze the mold before adding the white cheesecake filling.
You can see how to paint cheesecake into molds in my Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe.
Chocolate Body Parts
This tower of chocolates was fun to create for our party.
The top tray is filled with dark chocolate lips, the middle plate is filled with white chocolate buckeye decorated like eyeballs. and the bottom tray is filled with peanut butter chocolate hands, fingers, noses, and ears.
To make the eyeballs, I dipped peanut butter fudge balls in white chocolate and added a blue modeling chocolate iris and a black pupil. I drew the red veins using a food coloring marker.
Cookie Googly Eyes that really wiggle!
I wish we would have made these for our party but the idea didn't come to me until years later. Each of these eyeball cookies has chocolate pupils that wiggle around just like plastic googly eyes. Kids love them!
Be sure to check out all the Halloween recipes here on Hungry Happenings including some Gross Halloween food ideas.
- Mini Peanut Butter Cheesecakes - June 20, 2023
- Homemade Chocolate Easter Bunnies - April 3, 2023
- Mini Basketball Cheeseburgers - February 15, 2023
Noelle
I love the appetEYEsers idea! What a great spread.