How to Make Halloween Deviled Eggs

These Halloween deviled eggs will add a whimsical touch to your table with their jack-o’-lantern faces! Dye the yolk with a few drops of orange food coloring to make the pumpkin-colored filling, or use eggs with naturally orange yolks laid by marigold-eating hens.

Fun Halloween Appetizer

Turn everyday food, such as deviled eggs, into fun appetizers for special occasions. It is easy enough that your little ones can help decorate jack-o’-lantern faces! Or use your creativity to design other Halloween scenes, such as bats flying across a big yellow moon.

Make Jack-O’-Lanterns or Orange Pumpkins

These Halloween eggs can wear a jack-o’-lantern face or become plain orange pumpkins. Use black olives for facial features and a piece of green onion for stems. If making pumpkins instead of jack-o’-lanterns, use green onion stems only, and then use a butter knife to score vertical lines in the filling to look like pumpkin lines.

Using Black Olives for Halloween Deviled Eggs

Buy canned whole black olives for cutting out facial decorations. Start by cutting an olive in half lengthwise. Use a small straw to punch out round eyes. For oval-shaped eyes, squeeze the straw to elongate it and then punch out oval eyes. Plastic straws work better than paper straws when punching out circles because they will keep their shape. An alternative to using black olives is to use black nori seaweed sheets to cut out facial features. You can buy nori online or find it in the international aisle (usually with Japanese products) of larger grocery stores.

Use a Knife and Scissors to Cut Shapes for Halloween Deviled Eggs

Use a sharp knife to cut out triangle eyes, noses, and mouth shapes. You can also use small scissors to cut shapes. Remember that the faces do not have to be perfect for a pleasing Halloween look.

How to Prepare the Eggs

Cook the Eggs

The hardest thing about making these appetizers is to remove the shells from boiled eggs without damaging the egg whites. Some sources suggest that fresh eggs are to blame and only use older eggs. However, I have had trouble with both! The best way I found to cook eggs and easily remove the outer shells is to pressure cook them for 5 minutes in an Instant Pot. 

Tips to Make Hard-Boiled Eggs Easier to Peel

If you cook eggs on the stovetop instead of in an Instant Pot, here are some tips that might make them easier to peel:

Use eggs that are at least 1-2 weeks old. Older eggs are easier to peel because their inside air cell increases when the egg gets older. The egg shrinks as the air cell enlarges, thus causing the egg to pull away from the shell.

Put 1/2-1 teaspoon of baking soda in the water before cooking to increase the eggs’ alkaline pH. Fresh egg whites stick to the outer shells because of their acidic pH. Baking soda helps reduce acidity.

Place a boiled egg into a glass with water. Place your hand or a small plate over the glass. Shake the glass hard until there are tiny cracks all over it. Then, gently peel away the shell.

Cool hard-boiled eggs in ice water. The cold water will stop them from cooking and help the eggs to contract from the membrane, thus making them easier to peel.

Use a Spoon to Peel Halloween Deviled Eggs

Tap an egg onto a solid surface, rotating it until the shell is finely broken. Then, peel it away from the egg. If you find it difficult to peel, slip the tip of a spoon under a piece of broken shell and wiggle it until the peel releases. This method will help protect the egg white as you remove the outer shell.

Making the Filling for Halloween Deviled Eggs

Use an immersion blender to make a creamy egg yolk filling. Add all the ingredients to a container with a flat bottom and then blend with the immersion blender for a few seconds until smooth. If you mix by hand, use a fork to break apart the yolks before you mix in the other ingredients, or press the yolk through a fine-mesh wire strainer (or sieve) to break it apart. Then, stir until smooth and creamy.

Use Orange Gel Coloring to Tint the Filling

The easiest way to tint the filling for Halloween deviled eggs is to use orange gel food coloring. It doesn’t take much to achieve an orange color since the egg yolks are already yellow. If you want yellow-orange pumpkins, use a small amount of coloring, and for darker oranges, add more. Also, some egg yolks are naturally orange because of what the hen eats. When hens are fed marigold petals or feed with pigments called xanthophylls, their eggs can have orange yolks.

How to Add the Filling to the Egg Whites

Prepare the egg whites for the filling by carefully cutting the eggs in half lengthwise. Gently remove the yolks and place them into a bowl. Then, mix the filling with the recipe ingredients and add gel coloring (if using it).

Once the filling is prepared, fill an egg white to overflowing. Then, use the back of a spoon or tap it with your finger to smooth the filling into a pumpkin shape, making it smooth and flat. The appearance of the egg-white cavities will vary, giving you round, tall, and oval shapes for making pumpkins. Once the filling is shaped and flattened, clean any overflow filling off the rest of the whites with a knife so they are clean. Then, add the green onion stem and face decorations.

Other Halloween Recipes You Might Like

Click on each name to link to the recipe.

• Charming and Easy Cupcakes
• Spooky Eye Pies
• Cinnamon Tortilla Crisps
• Candy Corn Fruit Cup
• White Shivers Cocktail (and Mocktail)
• Cookies and Cream Spiderweb Bark
• Candy Corn Cupcakes
• Spinach Pear Salad (with cheese ghosts)