Updated October 2026 with a yield, a bake time range, a mini version and make ahead notes.
Mummy Hot Dogs with Crescent Rolls, aren’t they scary sweet?
These are such a fun idea! They would be perfect for a Halloween party!
Miranda, in the comments
My job as a kindergarten teacher requires constant animation of children and creativity when it comes to celebrations.
Halloween is coming, and like every year, this time we were also looking for a new surprise. Sometimes it takes a lot of imagination in order to persuade our children to eat anything.
My kids don’t really like food, they like playing games more. After a lot of effort to find the right solution for them to like food more than games, we finally managed it. Food has become a game.
We present you the “Crescent Roll Mummy Hot Dogs” which don’t look as bad as it sounds, but they are tasty and fun at the same time.
Will you agree that food tastes better when it is fun? There’s no science, just Crescent rolls and hot dogs, but when you look at this scowling face and the eyes that lurk beneath the bandages, you can’t resist to bite and show who the boss is.
Aren’t they scary sweet?
My creative friend Holly from blog Spend with Pennies, which I regularly visit, gave me an idea how to make the eyes that are savory. With only two ingredients: mozzarella and black olives, you will get perfect eyes.
What You Need for Mummy Hot Dogs
Five things, and two of them are not food.
- One 8 ounce tube of crescent rolls. One tube wraps 8 regular hot dogs. Pillsbury stretches the same size tube to 10 on their own version, so there is room either way.
- 8 hot dogs, regular size. For the mini version, see further down.
- Mozzarella and black olives for the eyes. This is the part that makes these different from almost every other mummy dog recipe, which uses two dots of mustard or store bought candy eyes. Ours are savory and made of real food.
- Mustard, mayo or ketchup, which is the glue that holds the eyes on.
- Two drinking straws, one large and one small. They are the cutters, not an ingredient. The large one cuts the cheese circle, the small one cuts the hole in the middle and the olive pupil. A small round piping tip does the same job.
How Do You Cut Crescent Dough into Mummy Bandages?
Unroll the tube and separate the dough into 4 rectangles, pressing the perforations closed so you are working with a sheet instead of triangles. Cut each rectangle lengthwise into strips 1/2 inch wide, then join 3 strips end to end so you have one long bandage for each mummy.
Keep the dough cold while you work. Crescent dough softens fast once it is out of the can, and soft strips stretch and tear instead of wrapping. If it warms up, put the cut strips back in the fridge for 10 minutes.
Leave a bare gap about half an inch from one end. That gap is the face, and it is where the eyes go later. A mummy wrapped all the way to the end has nowhere to look out of.
Mummy Hot Dogs with Crescent Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 8-ounce tube crescent rolls
- 8 Hot Dogs
- mustard or mayo or ketchup, for the eyes
- Mozzarella cheese sliced, for the eyes
- Black olives for the pupils
- 1 large straw for cutting the eye circles
- 1 regular straw the small one, for cutting the pupils
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Unroll the crescent roll dough and separate it into 4 rectangles, then press the perforations to seal.
- Cut the dough with a sharp knife into strips 1/2 inch wide, and join 3 strips end to end to form one long “bandage”.
- Wrap the “bandage” around a hot dog, leaving a gap near one end for the mummy’s face.
- Repeat with all the hot dogs and arrange them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake until golden brown, 13 to 15 minutes. Start checking at 12 minutes, because the thin dough strips brown fast.
- While the mummies are in the oven, cut slices of mozzarella as thick as you want the eyeballs to be.
- Cut the sides off the olives so they lie flat.
- Using the large straw, cut circles out of the cheese.
- Cut the centers out of the cheese circles with the small straw.
- Using the small straw, cut pieces out of the olives.
- Place a little piece of olive into each cheese circle.
- Take the mummies out of the oven, brush the face with a little mustard, mayo or ketchup, and press on the eyeballs.
Notes
Nutrition
How Do You Make the Eyeballs Without Candy?
Slice the mozzarella as thick as you want the eyeballs to be. Cut circles out of the slices with the large straw, then punch the center out of each circle with the small straw. Cut the sides off the olives so they lie flat, punch little rounds out of them with the small straw, and drop one into the hole in each cheese circle.
The eyes go on after baking, not before. Cheese put on before the oven melts and runs, and the face disappears. Brush a little mustard, mayo or ketchup onto the bare gap as soon as the mummies come out, and press the eyes into it.
The idea for savory eyeballs came from Spend with Pennies.
Can You Make Mini Mummy Dogs?
Yes, and the numbers change. Use 32 little smokies or cocktail franks with the same single 8 ounce tube of dough. Cut the strips narrower, about 1/4 inch, and wrap just one strip around each sausage instead of three. Bake at the same 375 F for 10 to 12 minutes.
We have not baked the mini version in our own kitchen, so those numbers come from recipes that have, and they agree with each other. Start checking at 10 minutes the first time.
Can You Make Mummy Hot Dogs Ahead of Time?
Partly, and it is worth knowing which part. The eyes can be done well ahead: cut the cheese circles and the olive pupils, keep them in a covered container in the fridge, and they are ready the moment the mummies come out.
The wrapping is what does not wait well. Crescent dough keeps proofing after the can is opened and the cut strips soften, so mummies wrapped hours early bake puffier and less neat. If you are feeding a party, wrap and bake in the last half hour, which is also when they taste best.
Mummy Dogs or Pigs in a Blanket?
Same two ingredients, different build. Pigs in a blanket wrap the whole hot dog in one solid piece of dough, so you get a neat sealed roll. Mummy dogs use narrow strips with gaps between them, which is what makes the bandages read as bandages, and they leave the face bare.
The gaps also change the baking. More of the hot dog is exposed and the strips are thin, so they brown faster, which is why 12 minutes is the moment to start looking rather than 15.
What Else to Serve at a Halloween Party
These belong on a table next to things people can pick up with one hand. Our Buffalo Chicken Dip and Neiman Marcus Dip both sit in a bowl and take care of themselves, and Easy Spinach Dip Cheese Sticks are the same crescent dough in a different shape.
If you have a second tube in the fridge, it also turns into Crescent Roll Apple Dumplings, Crescent Roll Pumpkin Pie Dumplings or Mini Cinnamon Crescent Rolls, which covers the sweet end of the table.
If you make these, leave a star rating on the recipe card above. Nobody has rated this one yet, and we would like to know how they come out of your oven.
Recipe notes, October 2026
Updated October 2026. The recipe card now states that this makes 8 mummy hot dogs from one 8 ounce tube of dough, and the bake step gives a range of 13 to 15 minutes with a check at 12, because thin dough strips brown fast. The notes cover a mini version with little smokies, what can be prepared ahead, why the eyes go on after baking and not before, and how a dark baking sheet changes the timing. The post now also answers the questions readers search for most: cutting the bandages, making the eyes without candy, and how these differ from pigs in a blanket.
These are such a fun idea! They would be perfect for a Halloween party!
Thank you Miranda, and you called it, these are a Halloween table recipe through and through. If you ever make them, a star rating on the recipe card would mean a lot to us.