Spooky Salad (Halloween Side Dish)

This fun and colorful Halloween Salad is the best spooky side dish. With pepperoni bats, vibrantly colored tortellini and mozzarella cheese skulls, it’s also the most delicious!

This Spooky Pasta Salad Makes a Great Halloween Side Dish!

The internet has exploded with creepy recipes in the past few years (including at least 16 on this site alone), but one thing I don’t see much of is Halloween side dishes!

Right before trick-or-treating / passing out candy, I’ll usually serve an easy dinner like chicken meatballs or crockpot beef stroganoff, but it’d be more fun to have a spooky side dish with it, wouldn’t it?

Enter this fun and colorful Halloween salad recipe. With pepperoni bats, spooky tortellini and mozzarella cheese skulls, it’s delicious as a side dish before trick-or-treating.

Halloween Themed Pasta Salad Ingredients

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• salad greens – I like spring mix, but arugula or spinach, or a combination of those things would work well.
• mozzarella cheese – pearl-sized mini mozzarella balls work best for the cheese skulls, as they’re the perfect size for the molds. However, you could also use a large ball of fresh mozzarella and cut it into small pieces to fit the molds. The most important thing is that you buy fresh mozzarella, as it melts the best.
• tomatoes – any variety of cherry or grape tomatoes works well here.
• olives – pitted Kalamata olives kind of look like little eyes, which is why they’re cool here. Green olives are spooky, too!
• mini peppers – these add lots of color and flavor to this Halloween salad recipe.
• pepperoni – we’ll be using thickly sliced pepperoni to make “bats,” which I also discuss below.
• tortellini – you can use fresh or frozen tortellini for this Halloween side dish recipe, and any variety! I used refrigerated cheese tortellini for the Halloween pasta salad element.
• food coloring – for dying the tortellini. I find that the gel food coloring gives the deepest color.
• silicone mold – I like this small silicone skull mold to make cheese skulls that are about 1 inch tall, but any kind of spooky Halloween shape would work for this salad.
• cookie cutter – you will need a small spooky cookie cutter for the pepperoni. I like the smallest size of these bat cookie cutters, but again, any Halloween shape is great.

How to make Halloween Salad

How to make mozzarella cheese skulls

1. SOFTEN. Blot the cheese very dry with paper towel, then place one cheese pearl in each skull in the silicone mold. Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Keep a close eye out for any bubbling, as you don’t want to BROWN the cheese but just SOFTEN it.

2. PRESS. Once the cheese is soft and melty, use the back of a spoon to press the cheese down into all the crevices of the mold.

3. CHILL AND POP. Transfer the mold to the fridge. Once the cheese has cooled and re-solidified (about 5 minutes), pop the cheese skulls out of the molds and toss them into your Halloween salad.

How to dye tortellini for a Halloween side dish

1. COOK. Cook the tortellini according to package directions and drain it.

2. DYE. In three separate bowls, add a few drops of gel food coloring to 3/4 cup of cool water, stirring to dissolve one color into each bowl. I think orange, green and purple are the best colors for this Halloween salad recipe. Divide tortellini evenly among the 3 bowls and let it sit for 5 minutes.

3. DRAIN. Drain the tortellini and rinse it with cold water. Pat the tortellini dry with paper towel.

Use a cookie cutter to make pepperoni bats

I already had a small bat-shaped cookie cutter on hand from other Halloween foods I’ve made, so it made perfect sense to make some pepperoni bats for this salad.

I used Boar’s Head deli pepperoni for this Halloween side dish, and I asked at the deli for the pepperoni to be thick sliced. Salami would also be a good alternative if you can’t find pepperoni.

You’ll have to press and wiggle the cookie cutter to get it through the pepperoni, but it’s do-able!

Red Wine Vinaigrette Ingredients For This Spooky Salad

• red wine vinegar – it can’t be red wine vinaigrette without red wine vinegar!
• dijon mustard – this acts as an emulsifier between the oil and the vinegar.
• garlic – minced garlic adds lots of flavor to the vinaigrette for this Halloween themed pasta salad.
• salt and pepper – you MUST season homemade salad dressings for them to taste great.
• dried oregano – this adds a special Italian flavor to the vinaigrette for Halloween salad.
• olive oil – use a good quality oil, because you will taste it in the finished vinaigrette.

Other Dressing Ideas For This Halloween Salad

Not a fan of red wine vinaigrette, or your kids aren’t? That’s totally fine!

I do prefer something that is along the lines of a vinaigrette so that it’s somewhat transparent and all of the spooky ingredients are still nice and visible once it’s dressed (as opposed to something thicker and opaque that will kind of hide the spooky elements).

Miso dressing and citrus salad dressing are also great condiment choices for this Halloween salad recipe.

For a shortcut, you can use a good quality bottled vinaigrette for this spooky salad. And hey, if the kids insist on ranch dressing, give them ranch dressing!

Ideas to customize this Spooky Pasta Salad

This Halloween salad idea is very easy to customize with whatever veggies you have on hand.

Cucumber slices or cut-out shapes would be a great addition to this Halloween side dish recipe. Try adding pickled red onion, pepperoncini, or shaved red cabbage, too.

Can I Make This Halloween Side Dish in Advance?

This is a great make-ahead recipe! All of the elements for this Halloween salad idea can be prepped in advance and kept separately in the fridge.

Put it all together and dress it just before you’re ready to eat, so the spooky salad does not wilt.

How to Serve Halloween Themed Pasta Salad

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They key to this Halloween salad is the presentation. Use a Halloween-themed bowl or even a black cauldron as your serving vessel.

Skeleton hand salad tongs are highly encouraged. And I recommend keeping the dressing in a glass lab flask and bringing it to the table for that mad scientist vibe as you add the dressing and toss everything together!

How to Store This Spooky Salad

I recommend eating this Halloween side dish on the same day that it’s tossed together with dressing. Storing salad greens already tossed with dressing is a recipe for sogginess.

If you suspect you will have leftovers, you can simply drizzle dressing over each individual serving. Then, you can store the leftover salad and dressing separately in airtight containers in the fridge for up to a day.