If you’re looking to put a little love into your Valentine’s Day treats this year, heart-shaped foods are the easiest! Seriously, there’s no need to run out and buy a cartful of special ingredients or gadgets; just grab a set of heart-shaped cookie cutters with various sizes. From there, it’s so easy to make dozens of fun, heart-shaped foods for family meals, classroom snacks, Valentine’s Day parties, and lunchbox treats. (Not that you’d make all of them. But hey, goals? Maybe? )
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This post has been updated for 2024.
Tons of Valentine’s Treats to Make With a Heart-Shaped Cookie Cutter
We’ve found over 40 (!) ways to take a simple cookie cutter and use it to transform foods, both sweet and savory, into appropriately festive, heart-shaped foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or dessert. That’s one mighty cookie cutter set!
Recipe: Two Peas and Their Pod
1. Heart-Shaped Pancakes Start everyone’s day off with a stack of delicious, heart-shaped, whole-wheat pancakes with this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod. Look at those tiny, heart-shaped pats of butter that go so well with the naturally “heart-shaped” strawberries! And if you’d like a semi-homemade shortcut for a school morning, see our popular post about the best pancake mix hacks to make your flapjacks taste more like homemade.
Related: 10 delicious and unique pancake recipes for Valentine’s Day
2. Heart-Shaped French Toast It’s also easy to make Heart-Shaped French Toast with a single cookie cutter. Just follow the recipe at Happy Hooligans. Ooh la la!
3. Heart-Shaped Fruit Kebabs Thick slices of juicy melon–cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew– and berries become cute little heart-shaped fruit kabobs with this idea from This Healthy Table. (Snip off the sharp end of the skewer before serving to kids.)
Recipe: Sally McKenney
4. Heart-Shaped Chocolate Hand Pies Move over box of chocolates and give us a plate of these chocolate-stuffed hand pies from Sally’s Baking Addiction. We’re in love!
5. Heart-Shaped Toast Toppings Cuteness alert! The Heart Shaped Animal Toast Ideas from Hello, Wonderful require nothing more than a few sandwich toppings (cheese, ham, and so on), some heart-shaped cookie cutters of varying sizes, and a little time, but ohhhhh. . .they’d make my kids’ day.
Fancy Sprinkles sells the best…fancy sprinkles!
6. Heart-Shaped Fairy Bread A kid-treat from down under, Fairy Bread becomes a heart-shaped snack in this super-easy Valentine’s Day snack idea from Daisies and Pie. Don’t skimp on the sprinkles: Any kind will do but we love the purple heart assortment from Fancy Sprinkles shown above!
Recipe: Stacie Billis
7. Heart-shaped Dog Biscuits Don’t forget your furry family member! Two paws up for these homemade peanut, butter, heart-shaped dog biscuits from Stacie Billis.
8. Heart-Shaped Marshmallows in Hot Chocolate If your Valentine’s Day is forecasted to be as cold as mine, warm them up with hot cocoa and little heart-shaped marshmallows cut out from a batch made using this recipe from Belly Full. Store-bought Shortcut: Grab a bag of Jet-Puffed Smore Marshmallows and cut out a heart from each little square. Also check out this gorgeous Deconstructed S’mores Charcuterie Dessert Board, which could use a few heart-shaped marshmallows to go with those heart-shaped Rice Krispy Treats.
9. Heart-Shaped Brownies Take a heart-shaped cookie cutter to a cooled pan of chocolate brownies for a super-fast Valentine’s themed treat. Or follow the recipe for Fudgy Brownie Hearts with Raspberry Buttercream from A Farm Girl Dabbles. It’s one of our favorites, and includes our tip for how to make the quickest pink icing. Pro tip: Make them even more fun with a little frosting, and write conversation heart sayings like QT PIE or KISS ME on top.
Related: 10 tasty ways to doctor a boxed brownie mix and make it extraordinary.
Recipe: The Bakermama
10. Heart Caprese Salad Slices of mozzarella are so easy to cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and look pretty in this simple Heart Caprese Salad recipe from The Bakermama, with the tomatoes arranged in a heart shape too. Get her info for dressing them up to be extra delicious, and be sure to check out our recos for the best boards for charcuterie, so you can serve them beautifully.
If you want to really get into the Valentine’s Day theme, we love the idea of a handmade heart-shaped olive wood cheese board like the the one we found from Etsy’s Artisan Concept, above. Beautiful.
Related: 19 Valentine’s Day gifts for the heart of your home…the kitchen.
11. Heart-Shaped Sushi! We hadn’t considered heart-shaped sushi before, but it’s definitely the way to our heart (and stomach). I really want to try this tutorial by Eat Smarter for smoked salmon sushi, and I bet my older kids will enjoy helping them too.
12. Heart-Shaped Cinnamon Tortilla Treats Turn store-bought tortillas into crispy, heart-shaped cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips in only a few minutes using this recipe from My Name is Snickerdoodle. Serve with her fruit salsa recipe for a relatively healthy but still fun after-school treat.
13. Heart-Shaped Quesadillas You know what else heart-shaped tortillas can become? Quesadillas! Make these cheesy hearts red simply by covering with salsa, or check out the red-heart quesadillas recipe from Raising Lifelong Learners, which feature all-natural food coloring.
And do you need a $60 handmade heart-shaped spatula from Beehive Handmade to lift your heart-shaped quesadilla or pancakes out of the pan? Well, define need because pop this on our Valentine’s Day gift list and we’d be thrilled.
Related: 19 Valentine’s Day gifts for the heart of your home…the kitchen
14. Conversation Heart Rice Krispy Treats Conversation Hearts Rice Krispie Treats from Two Sisters Crafting are so much fun to make, we’d get the kids involved in cutting out the hearts and writing special sayings on each. Makes a great classroom treat!
Recipe: Sally McKenney
15. Conversation Heart Cookies Pen your sweet nothings on a batch of delicious sugar cookies with the recipe and instructions from Sally’s Baking Addiction — she is clearly one of our all-time go-to sites for the most inspired, adorable holiday treat ideas of all kinds.
16. Heart-Shaped Roasted Potatoes No matter what you serve for dinner, Haniela’s little heart-shaped roasted potatoes will be the star of the plate; read it for tips for getting extra-crispy spuds.
17. Heart-Shaped Roasted Beets Add a pop of color to your roasted potatoes with this recipe for heart-shaped roasted beets and potatoes from Tablespoon.com.
18. Heart-Shaped Fried Eggs Cracking an egg inside a larger heart-shaped cookie cutter couldn’t be easier. Good Housekeeping has the tips.
Recipe: Foxes Love Lemons
19. An Entire Heart-Shaped Snack Board How much do I love the colorful and healthy Valentine’s Day snack board from Foxes Love Lemons? Using cookie cutters, this heart-themed charcuterie spread is a treat for your kids or your sweetheart. Grab some of those heart-shaped ramekins to hold dips or tiny nibbles.
20. Heart-Shaped Salad Toppings Another heart-shaped veggie idea: Use a tiny heart cookie cutter to make the cutest little Valentine’s Day salad toppings. Love all the ideas in this recipe from Jo and Sue.
21. Heart-Shaped Burgers Ground beef or ground turkey can easily be cut into heart-shaped hamburgers or veggies burgers for Valentine’s Day dinner, as seen at Happy Little Art. Tip: Make it easier on yourself and cut the buns into hearts instead, for the same effect.
22. Heart-Shaped Eggs in Toast Start their day off by frying a heart-shaped egg in a piece of toast using the instructions on Scholastic. Also called Love Toast which is beyond adorable.
Recipe: Celebrate Creativity
23. Heart-Shaped Sandwiches and Chips Scroll to the very bottom of Celebrate Creativity’s post to see some savory ideas, including these heart-shaped sandwiches and homemade heart-shaped potato chips. Super easy to customize to your family’s tastes. Or keep it easy with these heart-shaped cookie cutters made just for “homemade uncrustables.” PB&J perhaps?
24. Heart-Shaped Grilled Cheese Sandwiches Sweet and creamy grilled heart-shaped sandwiches from Jennifer Meier at The Spruce Eats make a delicious lunch, easy dinner, or quick after-school snack on Valentine’s Day. Plus, we get to eat the edges that we cut out!
Related: Comfort food upgrade: Try all these grilled cheese variations for a legit family dinner.
25. Heart-Shaped Pie Crust Cover a pie with pie dough hearts cut out with a cookie cutter for such a pretty topping. We love this homemade Valentine’s Day Cherry Pie from The Diary of Dave’s Wife, but we won’t tell anyone if you use pre-made dough and canned pie filing.
Recipe: Well Plated
26. Heart-Shaped Chocolate Bark Two-ingredient Chocolate Bark Hearts get their crunch from an unexpected source, but I trust Erin at Well Plated for this ingenious idea.
27. Homemade Heart-Shaped Granola Bars Grab this recipe for heart-shaped granola bites from 360 Family Nutrition. They only call for four ingredients!
28. Semi-Homemade Heart-Shaped Ice Cream Sandwiches A pack of ice cream sandwiches and some festive sprinkles become a cool heart-shaped ice cream sandwich treat with this idea from JaMonkey. So easy too!
Recipe: Stacie Billis for Cool Mom Eats
29. Sweet Puff Pastry Heart-Shaped Tarts I swear, these are simpler than they look! Just grab a larger and smaller cookie cutter and you can easily make a few of these Nutella Heart Puff Pastry Tarts that our own Stacie Billis created. There’s even a handy video to help guide you through it.
30. Savory Mini Heart-Shaped Pies at Hungry Happenings offers up Cheese-filled Pastry Hearts for Valentine’s Day made with melty mozzarella, and the result is like a mini calzone. Yum!
31. Heart-Shaped Meatloaf Comfort food at its finest, meatloaf can easily get the cookie cutter treatment for Valentine’s Day. We love the Penzey’s Spices recipe for heart-shaped beef meatloaf made with lots of their delicious spices. Similarly, the Diva Dish has a recipe for heart-shaped turkey meatloaf; or if you’re not meat-eaters, see Pete and Buzz’s recipe for heart-shaped vegetarian meatloaf. You have choices!
Recipe: Sarah Hearts
32-35. Heart-Shaped Homemade Pizzas We’ve got 4 fabulous ways to turn pizza into a Valentine’s Day-worthy meal using a heart-shaped cookie cutter:
– From scratch, with a recipe from Sarah Hearts, that we featured in our roundup of 12 fun, easy Valentines treats for classroom parties featured on Cool Mom Picks
– Using a loaf of french bread, with this recipe from Workman Family
– Placing heart-shaped toppings on homemade pizzas like the ones from How Sweet Eats
– Go semi-homemade with store bought pizza, plus your own heart-shaped pepperonis. Pop in the oven a few minutes to warm up.
36. Semi-Homemade Heart-Shaped Cookies Sure you can use those tubes of refrigerated dough, but these Red-Velvet Heart Crinkle Cookies from When is Dinner are nearly as easy. It takes only 15 minutes and 4 ingredients, starting with store-bought cake mix. Worth a look!
Recipe: The Decorated Cookie
37. Candy Heart Lollipop Cookies Of course, a heart-shaped cookie cutter can be used to cut out…cookies! But check out how cool they look when covered in crushed candy hearts and mounted on a lollipop stick using this recipe and tutorial from The Decorated Cookie.
38. Heart-Shaped Jell-O Cookies All the colors of the rainbow come together in these vibrant, fruity, and heart-shaped Jell-o cookies from Just Helen. Tip: Follow her link in the first paragraph to the actual recipe but don’t miss all her suggestions to get the brightest colors and best flavor.
39. Heart-Shaped Jell-O Jigglers Creamy Jell-O Jigglers in cherry, strawberry, raspberry or watermelon make great handheld Valentine’s Day snacks when cut out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. It’s such a simple idea you hardly need a recipe, but the brand’s own blog offers a recipe made creamier with the addition of milk.
Recipe: Spoon Fork Bacon
40. Heart-Shaped Strawberry Iced Cookies Let the kids put the candy eyeballs (easily found on amazon these days!) and icing smiles on these yummy strawberry-iced cookies from Spoon Fork Bacon.
41. A No-Effort, Heart-Shaped Candy Board I say to go ahead and use your heart-shaped cookie cutters to hold candies and little chocolates. There are some really clever ideas from Whimsical Whimsies on Instructables to make your candy buffet look as cool as hers and it’s super easy. I love the ruffled edges on these heart cookie cutters which would look so nice on a serving platter.
42. DIY Heart-Shaped-Truffles I love making no-bake cookie balls during the holidays but never considered using a cookie cutter to make Heart Shaped Oreo Truffles. Walking on Sunshine has a recipe with loads of photos, making it easier to whip up a batch for gifts — maybe for a special teacher?
43. Conversation Heart Cake Pops Tell your kids how you really feel with these delicious conversation heart cake pops from It’s Always Autumn. We think they are 2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten. And hey, shoutout to everyone who wrote this in my middle school yearbook!
