Halloween Pizza Potato Skins are a delicious spooky savory Halloween recipe. A great holiday snack, lunch, or dinner meal that is gluten free and vegetarian. Perfect for Halloween party food.
Prepare your potato skin shells if not done already. See link for recipe and instructions in notes below. (If they are not already cooked or prepped, this will add to overall cook time).
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Cut your olives. For four spider web potato skins: cut two olives in half lengthwise. These are the bodies. Set aside. Cut another four olives to make the legs. First cut them in half lengthwise, then cut each half into four strips. You will have 8 "legs" per olive total, and eight legs for each body. Set aside. For four mummies: Cut three olives into thirds crosswise so you get three rings or circles per olive. This will give you nine rings (one extra). Set aside.
Cut your cheese. For the four mummies: stack two slices of provolone. Cut them in half and stack. Cut the cheese on the short side (versus the longer way) into 1/2" strips. Set aside. For the four spider webs: stack two slices of provolone. Cut the cheese slices into 1/4" strips, some a touch wider and some a touch thinner to give you variety. Set aside. For the four ghosts: freehand cut a ghost shape with a knife in each slice. Set aside the scraps for use later. Alternatively, you can also use a ghost cookie cutter.
Line the empty potato skin shells on a baking sheet. Tear the leftover cheese scraps from the ghosts and place the pieces in the bottom of each shell.
Spoon 1/2 to 1 Tablespoon of the pizza sauce into each potato skin shell. You may need more or less depending on the exact size of the potato. It does not have to be full to the top.
Ghosts: Place the cheese ghosts in the potato skin shells.
Mummies: Place the thicker cheese strips in an alternating zig zag pattern up the entire length of the potato skin. The cheese should lay horizontally on a vertical potato skin (see picture) instead of the opposite. Place two of the olive rings on each potato skin for the eyes. If the end pieces of olives are not sitting flat, carefully trim the rounded side off.
Spiders: Using the thinner cheese strips, lay longer cheese pieces into an "x" with one or two additional pieces crossing over, like a snowflake (see picture). Then use thinner cheese strips to connect the long pieces in a circle around the center of the web. I made two rings (see picture). Tear the cheese as needed to get your desired lengths. Once the cheese is in place, put a halved olive down for the spider body. Then add the olive strips on each side to give the spider their eight legs (see picture).
Bake the potato skins in the oven until the cheese is melted, approximately 12 minutes. The cheese will not completely liquefy and will hold its shape, so you are looking for it to simply melt at the edges (see picture).
Optional: Make a face for the ghosts using pieces of ground red pepper flakes once they are out of the oven.
Serve immediately with additional pizza sauce if desired.
Notes
Learn how to make your own potato skin shells here!They can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator. The longer baking time is to account for making the potato skin shells themselves if you have not done so already.The exact amount of cheese and sauce that you will need will vary with the exact size and depth of each potato skin. I prefer to use provolone because it does not melt and lose its shape as much as mozzarella.Our Red Wine and Oregano Pizza Sauce is perfect for these potato skins, but feel free to use any sauce you love.This is for four ghosts, four mummies, and four spider webs. Simply adjust as needed to make only one or two of these patterns by multiply the materials needed for that pattern.You can also use small pepperoni instead of olives for eyes or cut up any other veggies to the right size.