When planning an Encanto-themed birthday, you need Encanto themed food and drinks. I’ve got plenty of Encanto birthday party food ideas to steal! For my daughter’s party, most of the kids coming were picky eaters. So while I wanted to stick to the theme, I needed the food to be appetizing to all of our guests.
I ended up making one dish of authentic Colombian food that’s highlighted in the movie. The rest was Encanto-inspired foods that were mostly character puns. As fun as I think it would be to have the menu be fully immersive, I don’t want to be saddled with hangry guests and tons of leftovers.
These are also great Encanto movie night foods for picnicking in the living room with your kids! Most of them are finger foods that require little to no preparation. Scroll down to the bottom to get my Encanto food card designs for free!
Foods Shown in Encanto
Many Colombian foods appear in Encanto.
- Arepas con queso
- Ajiaco Colombiano
- Buñuelos
- Empanadas
I personally felt that we had to include arepas in our Encanto menu ideas since they are so prevalent in the film. Mirabel’s mom, Julieta, can apparently heal any illness with her cooking. This Encanto healing food doesn’t appear to be limited to a single dish, either. But Mirabel sings about her mom’s arepas, and we see a lot of them in the film.
Bunuelos are fairly tame and would likely go over well with guests. Empanadas are also pretty familiar to Americans and could be a welcome main dish. They can even bea dessert option, if filled with fruit or chocolate. Honestly, I don’t recommend attempting the ajiaco for a children’s birthday party. It’s soup, and tons of guests walking around with soup is a no-go for my house.
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Encanto Party Food
Now that we’ve talked about the food actually in the movie, let’s talk about more of my Encanto party food ideas. These are all the foods I served for Lily’s party. Some I tied into various character traits, while others were just convenient for using alliteration.
Julieta’s Healing Arepas con Queso
I researched how to make the arepas from Encanto. Arepas “con queso” just means they are filled with cheese. I like cheese, my kids like cheese, and I think most people like cheese! I decided to call them “Julieta’s Healing Arepas” to help everyone understand that this was what Julieta was feeding her husband and Mirabel in the movie. These are delicious. Our guests were a bit skeptical when they saw them, but most people ended up eating two or three!
The Best Encanto Arepas Recipe
I actually sifted through dozens of arepas con queso recipes to find the right one for the party. It needed to be simple since I was a first-timer making arepas and I had to make a few dozen of them. But I also noticed that some of the recipes online call for very specific ingredients I couldn’t find at my local stores. And I’m not about to pay the outrageous prices for hard-to-find foods on Amazon.
In the end, I settled on this recipe from Simple Recipes. It’s very straightforward, and it let me know that filling the centers with extra cheese was optional. I opted not to in order to save time, and they were still plenty cheesy! Plus, it specifically stated they could be refrigerated and reheated, which I was grateful for. I made them the day before the party and stored them in the fridge in Ziploc bags. Just before the party, I reheated them in the oven on baking sheets.
The only ingredient I hadn’t used before was masarepa, which is a pre-cooked corn meal. I was very pleased to find it from Goya at my local Walmart. It took a bag and a half to make about 40 arepas. I had zero issues following the recipe. Mixing the ingredients and shaping the arepas from the dough was far easier than I expected. Cooking them in a large skillet on the stovetop was a breeze!
Mirabel’s Miracle Dip
While looking for Encanto snack ideas, I came across this wonderfully colorful Encanto dip recipe. I love foods that add to the visuals of a party! It combines whipped heavy cream, marshmallow cream, and cream cheese. You will DEFINITELY want to use an electric mixer to make sure the cream cheese is properly incorporated.
Divide it into three portions, add some bright food coloring, and swirl them together for a gorgeous dip! I topped it with some matching sprinkles I happened to have on hand. We served it with cantaloupe and strawberries because that’s what our kids like, but any fruit will do.
Isabela’s Grapes on the Vine
This was a really simple and cute Encanto themed party food. Isabela quite literally sings “grapes that thrive on the vine,” so I didn’t even have to spend time pulling individual grapes off! What we did do to make it easy for our guests was cut large bunches of grapes into smaller serving-size bunches at the stem. That way they could just grab a small bunch and go!
I ended up really preferring this method over loose grapes and tongs, which usually lead to grapes rolling all over the floor. We’ll probably serve grapes this way from now on.
Dolores’ Dip & Veggies
For the sake of a balanced meal, we usually try to have a veggie tray at our birthday parties. However, I really struggled to come up with an Encanto-related name for these. I certainly couldn’t think of a character to match them to. So I just went with some alliteration for this one, and Dolores’ Dip was born. It’s just ranch, haha.
Luisa’s Power Bars
When you think of power bars, you usually think of protein bars – but that’s not great for a children’s party. So we fudged it and used Rice Krispie treats instead! I had to be careful how I spent my food prep time for this party. So I opted not to do homemade Rice Krispie treats. You certainly could, though!
And I think having “naked” treats on the platter would’ve looked nicer, as opposed to the ones in Valentine’s wrappers. Oh well. At least our guests weren’t touching each other’s treats.
Antonio’s Animal Crackers
This was another no-brainer for me. Antonio is synonymous with animals thanks to his magical gift, and kids LOVE animal crackers! It also required zero prep work for me, which is always appreciated. I just poured some into a bowl with tongs to help discourage everyone from touching them with their fingers.
Abuela’s Magical Candles
While I saw several “candle” foods in my research, none of them were quite what I was looking for. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted! I dipped jumbo pretzel sticks into yellow candy melts and immediately sprinkled them with gold sugar glitter. Make sure you do all of this on wax or parchment paper for easier cleanup! About nine sticks fit into each Ball jar I had on hand. These were a HUGE hit!
Pepa’s Clouds
With Pepa’s weather affinity and trouble keeping the clouds away, I loved the idea of having cloud-inspired food. There are lots of things you could use for edible clouds. You could use white cheddar puffs (Pirate’s Booty), divinity candy, and even meringue clouds. My kiddos are obsessed with marshmallows, so I opted to just pour a bag of giant ones into a bowl. This is the bowl they did the most drive-by snacking on!
Bruno’s Sand Bites
Bruno is a family-favorite character, and he was featured in many aspects of our Encanto party. Since the sands of time are a big part of his gift, I wanted to incorporate that in some way. Snickerdoodles are perfect for Bruno! Delicious cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar have just the right vibe for a sandy treat.
I opted to my own snickerdoodles, because I’m very picky about their texture – I like them soft and fluffy. But they are very easy to find in stores as well. These would also work well on an Encanto dessert table!
Encanto Drink Ideas
An Encanto birthday party wouldn’t be complete without some themed drinks! In addition to water bottles and tea, I usually have one or two “punches” in our drink dispensers that match the party theme. This time, instead of each punch being named after a character, I collectively called them “Camilo’s Cool Drinks”.
I chose colorful drinks to highlight the focus on Mirabel and Isabela. Over the years I’ve made enough punch to have a good idea of what flavors go well together, so I came up with these myself.
How to Make Encanto Birthday Party Punch
The blue punch is equal parts blue Hawaiian Punch and Sprite. Cut up fresh strawberry quarters and lemon slices to float in it and add a little flavor.
For the pink one, I made two quarts of pink lemonade and added two quarts of orange sherbet. I would’ve used raspberry sorbet if I could’ve found it, though. Then I carefully added two liters of Sprite and stirred it until the sherbet was mostly dissolved.
Normally, one of my punches is the “popular” one and gets finished first. This time, they were both enjoyed equally! The pink punch was nice and smooth while the blue was super refreshing, so they were both great for different reasons. I got my drink dispensers at Walmart.
Free Encanto Food Labels
If you like my kid friendly Encanto party food ideas, you’ll be glad to hear you can download my printable Encanto food labels for FREE! I’ve included blank versions of each character card as well, in case you want to write in your own different Encanto foods. Just request the download below, and you’ll get access to a PDF with all of them. Use scissors or a paper trimmer to cut them apart. I use these cardholders for my food labels every year!
