12 Healthy Treats for Halloween Trick-or-Treaters
Whether you are a kid or a grown-up, no one can resist the yummy Halloween candy and sugary treats. The festive season of carved pumpkins, awesome costumes and scrumptious sweets is just around the corner, and you may have already begun to stock up on assorted Halloween candies.
When children come knocking on the door all happy and excited, you can’t help but hand out treats to light up their merry little faces. Your own children come home with heavy bags brimming with an array of chocolates, toffees, jellies, and sweets. As you watch your tiny humans stuffing their mouths with a never-ending amount of caramel toffees and peanut butter crunch, a feeling of guilt envelopes you. What an overdose of sugar and how unhealthy!
How about keeping it all balanced? This Halloween make some homemade treats that are healthy, delicious and yet scary to look at! Here are some amazing yet relatively easy recipes to try. You can be sure other parents will thank you even if their kids may not.
1. A Scary Pear Skull Snack
This innovative mommy wanted to give her kids a good scare and a lip-smacking treat full of rich nutrients. To whip up this quick and healthy snack, all you need is a handful of pears, blueberries, and almonds. Scoop out the pear from the middle to create a hole. Fit an almond inside it. Now stick frozen blueberries to create a frightening face that can induce terror and a loud scream. Eat it quickly and triumph over the horrifying skull! To prevent pears from going brown, spray some lemon juice. You can set them on a tray and offer them to children who come knocking on the door.
2. Honey Sticks
Are there just too many children with sweet-tooth around you? You don’t have to worry. With some honey and Halloween magic, you can prepare syrupy honey sticks that are healthy, sugary, and fulfilling. You can use any honey available in grocery stores. A squeeze plastic container would be ideal as it would make easier to squeeze out the honey into the straw. Alternatively, use a syringe.
Take straws, cut them to a desired length. Now insert the straw into the nozzle of the squeezy bottle of honey and gently squeeze it until the straw is almost full. Pinch and seal the open end of the straw. Remove the straw from the squeeze bottle and stand the straws straight up to let the honey sink in. Finally, seal the other in a similar fashion. When your doorbell rings, hand a couple of honey sticks to each kid. It will be a hit for sure!
You can also use a food saver or hand held sealer to pinch and seal the straws. If all that sounds too much like hard work, you can get ready filled honey sticks from your local health food store or online. If you don’t get through them all, you can still use it for your beverages.
3. Creepy Mandarins
How about a sweet, tangy, and zesty treat that is all-natural and healthy? Well, children may frown a little at first, but before you know it, they will gobble it up. What’s more, they are inexpensive alternative to candies as well! Place tiny bits of marshmallows on oranges to create a scary face. Wrap unpeeled mandarins in a bouncy net bag, and hand one to each kid along with other candies. To spice things up, wrap oranges in bandages or loosely with masking tape to give them a zombie look. To encourage children to eat it, tell them about the benefits of citrus fruits and how consuming too much junk food can ruin your body turning you into a scary monster.
4. Cheese and Pretzel Broomsticks
Gear up, parents! The healthy snack is a little tiresome to make, but the end-result is absolutely worth it. The cheesy pretzel sticks are perfect for the Halloween season. Cut a cheese stick into few pieces and cut the end of each piece into several strings. Stick pretzels into pieces of cheese and tie a string of chive around each stick like a ribbon. Set them neatly on a serving tray and offer it to kids when they come running to grab candies. The tasty broomstick-shaped cheesy snack will be a hit in the neighborhood.
5. Peanut Butter Acorns
Who doesn’t love Peanut Butter Cups? Sadly, you can’t keep munching on them until you want a cavity or two! Here is a healthier version that is (slightly) similar to your favorite chocolate nibbles. Peanut Butter Acorns consists of a small peanut butter cookie and a chocolate smooch. Country Living has a perfect recipe. Turn up the oven to 350 degrees F. and mix 3/4 c. smooth natural peanut butter, 3/4 c. sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 large Egg and 1 tbsp. flour in a glass bowl. Place little dome-shaped dough pieces into a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes until they have a golden crispy appearance. Melt some chocolate chips and dip each cookie in it.
6. Ghostly Banana Milk Shakes
Most kids come knocking expecting a handful of candy tossed in their loot bags, yet often what they need is some actual pick-me up and a yummy thirst quencher.
Every Halloween, I make a jugful of ghostly banana milkshake and offer it to my nieces in clear plastic cups with a ghostly face drawn over it with a permanent marker. Needless to say, they adore it! To make the milkshake, add slices of four bananas, two cups of cold milk, two teaspoon sugar and half cup cream into a blender. Blend until the mixture is smooth and pour it into two glasses. To jazz it up, add a dollop of whip cream on the top. Your fancy, ghostly shake is ready to be devoured. The recipe is inspired by Mommykatandkids.
7. Strawberry Ghosts
Kids might avoid eating fruits, but they won’t be able to resist spooky ghostly strawberries. They are easy-peasy to make! Simply dip strawberries into a yummy Vanilla Candiquik candy coating or melted white chocolate and place it on wax paper to harden up. Dot their eyes and mouth with chocolate drops or pipe melted chocolates. The spooky bite-sized treats will be gone in a minute and kids won’t even know it’s healthy for them!
8. Mummy Toast
Another quick and healthy Halloween treat is to make zombiefied mummy toast. Take a toasted slice of bread, add ketchup or pizza sauce, and place pieces of cheese and olives to create a mummy effect. Bake it for five minutes and wrap it in clingfilm when cool. Hand it over to kids safely tucked inside their candy bags. When kids get tired of all the sickly-sweet candies, they will savor each bite of this creepy, cheesy, and toasty snack.
9. Healthy and Scrumptious Cookies
To make delicious and nutrient-rich cookies, you don’t have to stick to a single recipe. There are dozens of recipes out there to try. Make cookies and put four cookies in a creepy bag, and happily give out to the kids. There are peanut butter cookies that you won’t be able to stop eating (do remember to be mindful of kids with nut-allergies though), there are Cinnamon Sugar Pillow Cookies filled with gooey, sweet cream, and soft and pillowy snowball nutty cookies that are simply melt in your mouth. Be careful though, they are so yummy that you might finish all of them yourself!
10. Maple Syrup Hard Candy
Maple syrup is healthier than white sugar. You can’t stop children from ingesting sweet treats during Halloween, but you can certainly keep a balance by offering them sweet alternatives. Make homemade candy with pure, unrefined maple syrup. The hard candy is simple to make. Heat the syrup until it reaches 300 degrees, pour it into greased candy mold. Wait for it to cool down. Once it has hardened, enjoy!
11. Frightful Fruit Kebabs
These are not your usual scrumptious spicy chicken on skewers. They are fruity, juicy and delightfully healthy. Take kiwi, cantaloupe and a marshmallow, cut them to size and insert a stick in all three. Draw scary faces on them with some chocolate frosting or melted chocolate. Your sweet and sour treat is ready to be served!
12. Sweet Popcorn Balls
When popcorn meet fruits, a heavenly treat is created! Throw popcorn, butter and dried in a heatproof bowl. In another pan, heat sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, and water until it simmers. Pour the mixture into a popcorn-fruit mix and when it cools down, make balls.
If you are scared to give your children junk food, don’t go on a strike, and break their hearts. Candy-free Halloween is no less than a nightmare and you don’t want to cause them such misery. Well, now you have an alternative! When Trick-or-Treaters come to your place this year, give them a balanced quantity of treats. Through these scrumptious and yummilicious recipes, get the approval of all the kids and mommies on the block. Happy Halloween!
