We have had some BIG minions fans in this house ever since the days of Despicable Me. Who can resist those silly characters! Ronin actually has an adorable minions comforter on his bed, and he even talked John into dressing up as a minion for Halloween this year. So funny! We’re definitely excited for the Minions movie Blu-Ray/DVD release tomorrow December 8th. Aren’t you!?

To prepare for movie night, I headed over for a beloved Target run while the kids were in school last week. Oh how I adore walking those aisles sans kids and picking up absolutely everything I need on my list. I wanted to put together some super fun snacks inspired by the Minions movie to surprise the kids and John. But I didn’t want them to be typical movie snacks. I mean yes, popcorn is great for me and the kids, but John actually doesn’t even like it. Can you imagine!? 

He’s more of an egg guy. Yes, I said that out loud, an egg guy. Actually, I’d say he has a bit of an egg obsession. So for him, I made his favorite deviled eggs with a Minions twist of course. The kids are huge sushi and rice lovers. They would go out for sushi just about every day if given the chance, and one of their favorite everyday snacks is rice. Yes, just rice. Isn’t that funny? So I thought why not amp up their favorite sushi rice too. I’m sharing my recipes with you below, but before I do here’s a Minions movie deal for you. 

Target Deal Alert!

Get a free $5 Gift Card with the pre-order of Illumination Entertainment’s Minions at Target.com. The Target-exclusive Metalpak Blu-ray/DVD – Deluxe Version includes 40 minutes of exclusive Target content of Minions © 2015 Universal Studios. All rights reserved.  You can even order it online and pick it up in store. This would make an awesome stocking stuffer for the kiddos … although I don’t think we’ll be able to wait that long! (FYI, the $5 Gift Card deal actually applies when you pre-order any movie at Target.com.)

Minions-Inspired Movie Night Snacks

Yellow Pepper Sushi Rice Balls

Ingredients for Sticky Sushi Rice:

3 cups Market Pantry Instant White Rice (or 1 1/2 cups Regular White Rice)

4 Tablespoons Market Pantry Rice Vinegar

4 Tablespoons Market Pantry Granulated Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

To Make Sticky Sushi Rice:

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Pour in 3 cups of instant white rice and stir. Cover and remove from heat. Let sit for a 5 minutes. 

While rice is sitting, pour rice vinegar, salt and sugar into a small saucepan. Place over medium heat and stir as you slowly melt the sugar. Do not bring to a boil. You’ll remove from heat once all of the salt and sugar is dissolved. After your 5 minutes are up, dump cooked rice into a wooden (or glass) mixing bowl. 

Pour rice sugar mixture over cooked rice and stir for several minutes. When you first pour it into the bowl of rice, the rice will seem very wet. Keep stirring to allow the liquid to coat all grains of rice. It will slowly start to become shiny and sticky. Once all rice is covered and it has a sticky texture, cover with a wet tea towel to allow rice to cool to room temperature without drying out. Do not put into the refrigerator to cool. 

What You’ll Need for Minion Faces:

1-3 Yellow Peppers

Simply Balanced Fruit & Vegetable Strips

1-inch Round Cookie Cutter

Apple Corer

Paring Knife

To Make Yellow Pepper Minions Faces:

Using the natural shape of your yellow peppers, carefully cut oval shapes. This particular pepper resulted in 3 ovals but you might find some peppers create 2 or 4 oval shapes.

Once your rice is fully cooled to room temperature, you will stuff some sticky sushi rice into each yellow pepper oval you have cut. A tip for this step is to use plastic wrap to pick up a handfull of rice. It is quite sticky and this will make it much easier.

Once filled with rice, flip your peppers to create the faces. Using the round cookie cutter, cut circles from the fruit strip. 

Then using your apple corer, cut a smaller circle inside of your larger circle to create your minion’s goggles. 

You will then use your apple corer again to cut the small circle in half to create the eyeball and smile. Using a knife, cut strips for the sides of the goggles and hair. The fruit strips are actually really easy to cut cleanly and are quite sticky so they stay in place pretty well on their own. Depending on the size of your peppers you can make minions with single or double goggles.

Important Tip! Do not create any of the snacks using the fruit strips in advance and refrigerate. The fruit strips will melt in the refrigerator. These snacks should be made just prior to your party or movie night. 

Sticky Sushi Rice Bowls

I used the same technique to create the sticky sushi rice bowls for the kids. And I put them in these adorable bowls I found at Target. They have so many fun party essentials inspired by the Minions movie. 

Deviled Eggs

To make the smaller circle needed for the deviled eggs, I created a circle of fruit strip with the apple corer and then used the end of a pencil (with eraser removed and cleaned) to make the smaller interior circle.

Someone was very happy! I think I ended up eating only one of them. 

Minions Candies!

Ellie had a blast helping me create these cute little edibles.

We used brightly colored candies with a smooth hard coated surface and drew little faces with Food Writer markers. Look at her face! She’s really concentrating on the task at hand. Too cute! Interestingly, Ellie had an easier time drawing these than I did because of her small hands. 

Minions Twitter Party!

Join our Minions Viewing Twitter Party on December 11th from 7-9pm EST! RSVP at www.SoFabChats.com and follow along with the #MinionsMovieNight hashtag on Twitter. Don’t forget to follow @Target and @Minions on Twitter!

And of course, don’t forget to visit Target for all of the ingredients needed for your movie night! I even used my Cartwheel app and scored 5% off of a few of the Market Pantry and Simply Balanced products I used above. 

Have you and your family seen Minions? Have you pre-ordered your Blu-Ray/DVD from Target yet?

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For more minions fun, check out my DIY Recycled Bottle Bowling Game and other party ideas: