8 Quick and Easy Superbowl Snacks

Superbowl season. That means it time for my very favorite football photo, circa 2016. Yes, that’s me, pink shoes and all. Following the obligatory photo, find some of my favorite recipes to make for your game day spread. Each of these recipes are quick and easy and my guess is you already have most of the ingredients in your fridge or pantry. You’ll find fun tips for setting up your spread at the end of this post. Size up your strategies, get your game plan together; and then get ready to run with the ball. Cheers to making this season’s Superbowl snacks better than ever.

1. Superbowl Onion Rings

If you have a crowd who loves onion rings, you’ll find my favorite recipe in this post featuring Lusty Monk Mustard from Candler, NC just outside of Asheville.

The recipes in this post are sure to please any armchair quarterback and each of them features one of the Lusty Monk mustards as a key ingredient. Order Lusty Monk online from their website; or, in Charlotte, buy this delicious local mustard any day of the week at any of the Pasta & Provisions locations; at The Loyalist in Matthews and at Orrman’s Cheese Shop at 7th Street Market in uptown Charlotte, as well.

The post also includes a great mustardy bechamel I like to serve with butter poached carrots, but it has lots of applications. Try it on grilled chicken, sauteed tofu, breaded and fried fish fillets.

2. For another of this year’s Superbowl Snacks, fry shrimp following the same instructions as the onion rings and serve my mustard bechamel as a great hot dipping sauce.

Need to keep it Gluten Free?

Want to make these delicious onion rings gluten free. Use locally-milled rice flour from the fine folks at Tidewater Grain Company. I’ve written about Tidewater Carolina Gold Rice on these digital pages many times before. But now, in addition to white and brown Carolina Gold Rice and middlin’s; they also mill and sell rice flour.

In Charlotte, Tidewater’s Rice Flour is currently available from Mano Bella Artisan Foods at The Market at 7th Street. You can also buy it online, directly from the farm by clicking here.

3. Jalapeno Poppers on Your Superbowl Menu

It’s always fun to serve these little hot poppers. There are lots of recipes out there that make the process a complicated one, but this one is super simple and it’s a real crowd pleaser.

4. Bonus in this recipe is that it also includes a recipe for homemade pimento cheese. Use it to stuff your poppers or serve it on its own with crackers, or celery sticks for dipping.

5. Game Day Blue Cheese and Pecan Puffs

This next recipe comes as a result of a fun trip I took to the Abbeville/ Greenwood area of South Carolina. While I was there, I visited a wonderful pecan farm in the little town of Ninety-Six, SC. I came back with all sorts of local SC pecans and made these wonderful little puffs with blue cheese, crushed pecans and a little minced cilantro to finish for a segment I did on Charlotte Today.

Lots of my friends served these all through the holidays, but I think they will make for great Superbowl snacking as well. Get the recipe and read more about the 96 Pecan Company in South Carolina, here.

6. In the same post, you’ll find a recipe for Chicken Sate ( skewered chicken on a stick) done in an Asian marinade and finished with a pecan dipping sauce. You can make wings the very same way.

If You Want To Just Wing It…

When it comes to Superbowl snacking, there always seems to be a lot of talk about wings. You can fry wings or grill them. Or you can bake them like I do.

For me, baking allows you taste the sauce or marinade as well as the chicken. And, of course, I recommend that you start with local chicken.

7. If you need a blueprint on how to start, you know I’ve got your back. Simply Scroll down to my recipe for Jezebel Wings in this Superbowl post from 2020. In the post you’ll find several other gridiron greats as well, like recipes for meatballs, crunchy cheese wafers and a tasty miso pesto, each made with a local NC product. Plus, in that same post there is a fun video, telling you more about each of these wonderful ways to eat local.

The wing recipe in this post features a great NC sauce made by a Winston Salem Company called the Ya’ll Sauce Company. They have a whole line of sauce all made from scratch and any one of them will make a delicious batch of wings.

Two More Tasty Ways to Sauce up Your Superbowl

Two others I would recommend are Cackalacky Sauces, from Pittsboro, NC, made from North Carolina Sweet Potatoes – you can read more about Cacklacky in this eat local round up .

And, I highly recommend a new line of sauces I discovered while I was at the NC State Fair in Raleigh NC last October. They are called TonTon and each one features authentic Japanese flavor. Get recipes and order TonTon online here.

8. Make Football Field Flatbread or Foccacia

Use refrigerated or homemade biscuit dough or crescent roll dough to make a football field flat bread or Foccacia. You’ll find the recipe and inspiration in this post I originally did for a Memorial Day appetizer. I did a garden scene here; but it would be super simple to recreate the green turf ( use pesto) and white yard lines of a playing field ( use string cheese or cut lengths of mozzarella). Or, perhaps you can trim the dough and make it into a football flatbread. This is a fun one for the kids to dig their hands into.

The crescent roll dough flat bread was a good bit thinner than my original flag focaccia, but it was a great accompaniment to a glass of wine or two out on the deck. As you can see I added veggies, herbs and cheese; but it would be so easy to add on and kind of cured meat like ham, prosciutto, crumbled bacon. You could also add on rolled salami to make more of flower or keep it vegetarian and use sliced tempeh for the stems… the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Your Superbowl Spread

Finally, let’s talk about the table. Go all out here. but don’t limit yourself to the same old – same old serving dishes. Think outside the box and more about the gridiron. My “table cloth” here is a length of astroturf.

Toy footballs become the centerpiece in lieu of candles and flowers. And if you can find a pair of extra large new ( clean) cleats, you can line them with foil or fit a small bowl inside and use them as a fun was to serve your favorite dip. Toy football helmets make wonderful containers for chips or popcorn and pennants for your favorite teams to add some color and if you want to serve any of the bottled sauces featured here ( or ketchup or mustard and other game day condiments) fit a rocks glass into a Koozie for your favorite teams and put a spoon in each for serving.

I can’t wait to see what you create. When you post your Superbowl Snacks photos on social media be sure to tag me – Heidi Billotto or Heidi Billotto Cooks on Facebook, and @HeidiBillotto on instagram. I’ll share your photos in my stories. Looking forward to seeing all of your Gridiron Greats!