Styled into spooky cute spiders, these Buffalo Chicken Bombs are the most amazing and fun Halloween meal or party food!
It’s easy to make these bombs, stuffing cheesy, spicy chicken into pizza dough pockets. They’re baked in the oven in just 15 minutes, and ready to decorate for a scary good holiday.
The key to having a fun and spooky Halloween meal is to use your creativity to make your food look like spiders, ghosts, and disassembled body parts!
And while this may not be an everyday kind of recipe, it’s certainly on theme for Halloween. Just look at these cute spiders!
My favorite part is the creepy articulated legs, made with pretzel sticks and black olives.
My second favorite part is the tasty buffalo chicken filling, made with cream cheese, shredded cheese, cooked chicken, and buffalo wing sauce!
Need more fun Halloween food ideas? Try my Halloween Spaghetti with mozzarella cheese eyeballs, or spooky Witch Finger Breadsticks.
Buffalo Chicken Bombs Recipe Highlights
- A Fun New Recipe! Wondering what buffalo chicken bombs even are? They’re round bread balls, stuffed with cheese and Buffalo seasoned chicken! Mine are made with pre-made pizza dough (or you can make dough from scratch), individually portioned, and easy to eat with your hands.
- Easy to Customize – Adjust the hot sauce to suit your preferences! You can also make chicken bombs with BBQ sauce, or make pizza bombs with pepperoni, sauce, and cheese.
- Adorable (and scary!) Spiders – We will use food coloring to make the bombs an inky black, and make long spider legs with pretzels. Candy eyes give each spider even more character!
Looking for even more easy Halloween appetizers? Check out my Halloween Taco Dip, or skip to dessert and bake up some Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes.
Key Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make these Buffalo Chicken Bombs for Halloween:
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
- Pizza Dough: The outside of the bombs is made from pizza dough. You can use refrigerated pre-made dough (the kind that comes in a can works perfectly), or try my bread machine pizza dough recipe. Let the dough come to room temperature so that it’s easy to work with.
- Cooked Chicken: I’m actually using some leftover crispy chicken tenders to make these, but any kind of already cooked chicken will work. Feel free to cook up some frozen chicken fingers for this recipe. You can also poach chicken breasts and shred them or use rotisserie chicken.
- Buffalo Wing Sauce: Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce is very good, but if you like, you can make homemade wing sauce using my easy recipe. Be sure to use a wing sauce rather than just plain hot sauce, or your chicken will be too spicy!
- Cream Cheese: This gives the filling a wonderful creamy texture and helps to bind all of the ingredients together. Allow the cream cheese to come to room temperature before mixing.
- Shredded Cheese: For the best flavor and meltiness, use a combination of freshly shredded sharp cheddar and mozzarella cheeses.
- Black Food Coloring: You’ll need gel food coloring to make these chicken bombs a nice deep black color. We’ll mix the black coloring with butter and seasonings.
- Decorations: Pretzel sticks, pitted black olives, and will give these buffalo chicken bombs a fun spider disguise!
How To Make Buffalo Chicken Bombs Spiders
Start by preheating your oven to 400°F/200°C. Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray lightly with oil.
Tip!
The food coloring might look spotty, but it will even out as the chicken bombs bake. You can add a bit more of the garlic butter after the first 10 minutes in the oven to darken things a bit if needed.
Recipe Tips
- If the chicken mixture seems dry, add a little extra buffalo sauce to pull it together.
- Fuller is better. It will seem like you’re adding a lot of the filling to each ball of dough, but that is what will give the spider its shape! If it’s helpful, you can use your hands to press the filling together like a snowball before you add it to the dough.
- Create a good seal. If there are holes in the dough, the filling will ooze out! Pinch the seams of the pizza dough together to be sure that won’t happen.
- Use the tip of a small knife to help you add the details to each spider. The candy eyes will need a space to fit into, and it can be helpful to create tiny holes in the olives to get the pretzels into them easily.
- Skip the food coloring, and coat the bombs in poppy seeds before baking! To get them to stick, use a light coating of egg wash. You can also just omit the food coloring and leave these a natural color.
Storing Tips
These are going to be best if eaten right away, but if you need to store leftovers, keep them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
You can reheat the buffalo chicken bombs (without the spider decorations) in the air fryer, or in the oven for a few minutes, just until heated through.
Recipe FAQs
Can I make buffalo chicken bombs with crescent dough?
I don’t recommend using crescent roll dough for this recipe, as it’s very soft and won’t hold its shape well. The crescent dough is also already very buttery, so the layer of black garlic butter could make the bombs greasy.
What kind of chicken should I use?
You can use any kind of already cooked chicken. Breaded chicken, like chicken fingers or chicken tenders add a delicious texture to the filling. Non-breaded chicken breast will also be totally tasty!
Can I make these ahead of time?
Yes! Wrap the chicken mixture into the dough and store the balls in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. When you’re ready to bake, continue with the rest of the recipe instructions.
These spider-shaped Buffalo Chicken Bombs are going to be so fun for your Halloween party this year! Save this recipe for the occasion by Pinning it!
Did you make this? Be sure to leave a review below and tag me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!
Halloween Buffalo Chicken Bombs
Equipment
- sheet pan
Ingredients
- ½ cup (120 ml) buffalo wing sauce
- 3 ounces (85 g) cream cheese softened
- 4 cups chopped cooked chicken cooled, or shredded chicken
- 1 ¼ cup (140 g) shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 ¼ cup (140 g) shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup green onions
- 1 13.8 oz can (390 g) pizza dough
- 3 tablespoons (39 g) unsalted butter
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Black food coloring
- 48 pitted black olives
- 96 pretzel sticks
- 12 large candy eyeballs
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C), or 180°C for a fan oven, and prepare a large baking sheet by lining with aluminum foil and lightly spraying with oil. Set aside.
- In a large bowl mix the cream cheese and buffalo sauce together until mostly combined, a few small clumps of cream cheese is OK..
- Add the chicken fingers and green onions, mix until coated.
- Add the cheeses and mix one last time, add additional buffalo sauce if the mixture feels dry, then set aside.
- On a clean workspace roll out the pizza dough and cut into 6 equal pieces.
- Gently stretch out the dough squares a bit then mound ⅙th of the filling in the center of each square.
- For each square, pull the opposite corners up over the mound of filling and pinch them together, repeat with the second set of corners. Then pinch all of the remaining open dough together. Try to get a good seal without any openings.
- Gently pick up the dough balls and place seam side down on the prepared baking sheet with plenty of space between each one. Carefully adjust the shape of the dough balls if needed, you’ll want them to be as spherical as possible.
- In a small microwave safe bowl place the butter and the spices. Heat the butter in the microwave until melted. Add a few drops of the black food coloring and mix well. The color will be a dark charcoal gray to Black when finished.
- Gently as to not poke holes in the dough, brush the black butter mixture over the top of each dough ball. Make sure to get the sides all the way to the bottom, cover all exposed dough.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. After about 10 minutes, take a look at the spiders. If they are not black enough for your preference now would be a good time to take them out and coat them with a little bit more of the black food coloring. Otherwise, continue to bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes or until the bottoms have browned and the tops are solid.
- Remove from the oven and set on a cooling rack.
- To make the legs, take the pretzel sticks and break them in half. Stick two halves of the pretzel sticks into the sides of a black olive, in a V shape, see pictures. Repeat this 8 times per spider.
- Choose one side of a spider to be its face, and use a small paring knife to cut 2 round holes for the eyes, no need to remove the dough just press it into the spider gently. Place the eyes carefully into the holes.
- Use the knife to cut 4 small slits on each side of the spiders. Slide one leg into each slit.
Notes:
- Fuller is better. It will seem like you’re adding a lot of the filling to each ball of dough, but that is what will give the spider its shape! If it’s helpful, you can use your hands to press the filling together like a snowball before you add it to the dough.
- Create a good seal. If there are holes in the dough, the filling will ooze out! Pinch the seams of the pizza dough together to be sure that won’t happen.
- Use the tip of a small knife to help you add the details to each spider. The candy eyes will need a space to fit into, and it can be helpful to create tiny holes in the olives to get the pretzels into them easily.
- Skip the food coloring, and coat the bombs in poppy seeds before baking! To get them to stick, use a light coating of egg wash. You can also just omit the food coloring and leave these a natural color.
Nutrition Information
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
© Little Sunny Kitchen
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