Super Bowl Sunday is coming up soon, and the players have been set and here is what we’ll be serving for the big game. (Spoiler: It’s a lot of deep-fried deliciousness and finger foods.) We tweak the match-ups yearly, but it mostly includes the following foods, our 21 favorite Super Bowl snacks.
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Buffalo wings
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Wings—both boneless and classic —are probably our No. 1 favorite football food. We usually prefer a medium or hot Buffalo wing dipped in chunky blue cheese, but barbecue (or honey barbecue), garlic-parmesan, Thai chili, or any other wing is welcome on our table. Extra crispy, please.
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Crudité
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Sliced, raw veggies—also known as “crudité,” if you’re fancy—are a must at our Super Bowl party. Not only are celery, carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, and peppers crucial special teams players when we punt away our diet to chow down on fried foods, but they also provide the perfect opportunity to serve numerous dips. We need at least three of these, which include options like veggie dip, ranch, hummus, or French onion dip.
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Deviled eggs
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Another slightly healthier option—especially if you’re on a high-protein diet—deviled eggs are an addicting game-day snack. They look complicated, but are actually quite easy to make, as long as you don’t consider hard-boiling eggs to be especially difficult. If you’re looking for a recipe, Food Network can show you the playbook.
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Egg rolls
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As snack-sized, portable finger foods, egg rolls should absolutely be added to your game day appetizer assortment. We’re down with traditional egg rolls filled with pork, cabbage, and carrots, as well as offbeat varieties like Southwestern egg rolls (chicken, corn, black beans, and peppers), breakfast egg rolls (eggs, meat, and cheese), or barbecue pulled pork egg rolls.
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Fried pickles
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We’ve always loved pickles, but the first time we tried fried pickles, it blew our minds. Since that day, fried pickles have been hard to resist on any menu, and we often pick up—or fry up—a batch for the big game.
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Fries
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We’re fans of fries in every form, from waffle and shoestring to curly and crinkle-cut. As for condiments, we’re generally ketchup purists, but can’t resist a good Samurai sauce or gravy with cheese curds.
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Guacamole
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We owe a lot to guac. It improves nachos, tacos, and burritos quite well (and yes, it’s worth the extra charge). It’s one of the healthiest things in which you can dip a chip, thanks to healthy fats and antioxidants in the avocado. It got us to try avocado in the first place. And, most importantly, it’s both cheap to buy and easy to make.
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Jalapeno poppers
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The spicy flavor of the jalapeno balances perfectly with the cool, creamy texture of the cream cheese, and, of course, the whole thing is deep-fried to golden goodness. Including them in your Super Bowl spread is an easy call. The only play left to decide is: What do you dip them in? (We suggest blue cheese, ranch, or a sour cream-lime sauce.)
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Mac & cheese bites
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Speaking of things deep-fried to golden goodness, fried mac & cheese is something that’s been a big part of our app life, but only for the past decade or so. (Where the heck was it hiding before that?!) Now we’ve had mac & cheese bites, mac & cheese squares, and even burgers with fried mac & cheese as the buns. That last one is a big commitment—and a messy one—so we’ll stick with the snack-sized bites for our football festivities.
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Meatballs
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Meatballs are our favorite football snacks to eat with a toothpick. And we mean mini meatballs, of course, as a full-sized ball would require a much larger skewer. We’re fans of classic Italian meatballs with a meat or marinara sauce, or teriyaki-style, or sweet and sour—which can be made in a slow cooker simply by combining two bottles of chili sauce and two cans of whole cranberries.
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Mozzarella sticks
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You don’t need to be a Cheesehead from Green Bay to know that cheese is king when it comes to snacking. Also, most foods with “stick” in the name are delicious. Thus, our Super Bowl spread always includes golden-fried mozzarella sticks with a side of robust tomato sauce.
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Multi-layered dips
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We’re totally fine with a single-layer dip, but we can’t help but be tempted by three-layer, five-layer, seven-layer, and even 10-layer dips. Common ingredients for the individual layers include refried beans, black beans, sour cream, cream cheese, shredded cheese, queso, guacamole, salsa, pico de gallo, and chopped foods like tomatoes, peppers, olives, and corn.
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Nachos
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When multi-layer dips sound like too much dip and not enough chips, we’ll switch it up and go with nachos, where the ingredients are all piled on top of the chips. There’s no judgment when it comes to nacho ingredients, but to us, cheese is an essential element, and we also insist on at least including tomatoes, black olives, guac, jalapenos, and sour cream.
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Onion rings
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A tower—not a plate or a bowl—of onion rings is an obligatory offering when Super Bowl rings are at stake. We like a mix of thick-cut and thinly sliced rings, beer-battered and fried (or air fried) until extra crispy. For dips? We prefer ranch and barbecue, or a copy-cat “Bloomin Onion”-style dip.
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Pigs in a blanket
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We said wings are our No. 1 Super Bowl snack, but they’re actually tied with pigs in a blanket, which is a tradition dating back to our childhood. In fact, mini hot dogs wrapped in buttery and flaky puff-pastry dough are actually more meaningful to us, as the only day we eat them is Super Bowl Sunday.
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Potato skins
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Baked potatoes have a lot of potato in them, fries have very little. Somewhere in the middle lies potato skins, which are basically potato halves. Still, they get the baked-potato-topping treatment, as we load ours with melted cheese, bacon, and sour cream. Plus, “potato skin” kind of sounds like “pigskin,” and that’s football-y.
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Pretzels
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One of our favorite stadium snacks are soft pretzels—and we mean pretzels that are actually soft, not dried-out ones that have been spinning around in a glass box for three hours. They can also be made from scratch at home, cooked from frozen, or, if you prefer, eaten in their smaller, crunchier form out of a bag. (For the soft ones: Don’t forget the spicy mustard and beer cheese for dipping!)
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Queso
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Oh so creamy and oh so cheesy, queso dip is liquid gold on chips or bread or veggies or a spoon. If you’re making it at home—which you absolutely should—avoid recipes with American cheese. You’re better than that.
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Salsa
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Mild, medium, or hot—salsa is a winner any day, including Super Bowl Sunday. We’d also be just fine scoring some black bean & corn salsa, or a salsa roja or salsa verde. Store-bought is fine, but homemade is fresher and better!
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Sliders
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Burgers and sandwiches are commitments—and you don’t want to miss a minute of football action because you’re tending to a messy meal. Instead, sliders are snack-friendly versions of our favorite foods, including mini bacon cheeseburger sliders, buffalo chicken sliders, pulled pork sliders, and grilled mushroom sliders.
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Spinach-artichoke dip
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Hey, here’s something sort of healthy to help round out your Super Bowl spread (and this list). Spinach-artichoke dip contains spinach and artichokes, which have numerous health benefits…but don’t do a touchdown dance yet, as this “healthy” dip also contains mayo, sour cream, cream cheese, parmesan, and mozzarella
