30 Snacks To Liven Up Your Super Bowl Party

Let's admit it: As much as Super Bowl is about watching your favorite team compete against another in a nail-biting play-off, it's also about what's on the table to munch on during the showdown. Nothing completes the Super Bowl experience quite like a cold beer in one hand, a chicken wing in another, and a chip and dip platter in front of you waiting to be devoured.

As an estimated 192.9 million Americans gear up to tune into the game this year, 103.5 million plan to attend a Super Bowl Sunday party or better yet, host one themselves (via National Retail Federation). For those hosting, the most important part of planning is going to be the game day menu. After all, while the results of the game may go either way, there's only one thing that you can be sure of and that's the food.

Whether you're hosting a group of friends in the garden, plan to watch the finals by yourself in front of the television, or couldn't care less about the game and are only there for the sweet, salty, and spicy munchies, it's a good time to start thinking about the snacks. Here are some easy, time-saving, and big-batch snack recipes that will liven up all Super Bowl parties.

You can't have a snack table without something spicy in the mix and these jalapeño poppers will hit the right spot. Recipe developer Laura Sampson adds sriracha to take the heat up a notch but recommends scraping away the jalapeño's membranes, seeds, and pith so that the poppers aren't too spicy. Fried bacon adds an unexpected oomph, while breadcrumbs bring some crunch. The fact they can be prepped ahead of time is only a bonus! All you have to do before the game begins is remove the stuffed jalapeños from the refrigerator and bake them.

Recipe: Jalapeno Poppers

Love a good ham and cheese sandwich? Turn the classic combination into the perfect game day sliders! While the recipe uses honey-roasted ham, Swiss cheese, and mustard plus chopped pickles and pickle brine for tang, there's also room for additional toppings like grilled onions, peppers, and mushrooms. The best part, however, is that you don't have to make each slider individually. Slice a pack of buns horizontally, layer them on a baking tray, add the filling, and then put the top half of the buns on. Bake until the buns are crisp and the cheese is melty.

Recipe: Ham And Cheese Sliders

Chips and dips may be the ultimate Super Bowl food: they're both crisp and creamy, can be thrown together quick, and they're easy for everyone to nibble on between sips of beer. While you go stock up on the chips (though you could add veggie sticks too), we have the dip part covered. You'll need cream cheese and mayo for the base, hot sauce for heat, crumbled blue cheese for an extra kick, and cooked chicken. Take 15 minutes to mix everything, another 20 for the cheese to melt in the oven, and your buffalo chicken dip will be ready before the commercials even begin.

Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Dip

According to the National Chicken Council, Americans are projected to eat a whopping 1.45 billion chicken wings during the Super Bowl weekend this year. That's roughly four wings per person in the U.S. If you're ready to contribute your four wings and then some, this no-frill recipe for simple buffalo wings may be just what you need. Neither too spicy nor too bland, the recipe has everything that you'd want from a classic chicken wing: crisp, juicy, packed with flavor, and incredibly hard to get enough of.

Recipe: Buffalo Wings

If last year's numbers are any indication, over 48 million Americans order takeout during Super Bowl (via Restaurantware). This means delivery drivers are going to be extremely busy, food deliveries will take much longer than usual, and the chances of the Southwest egg rolls that you ordered from Chili's turning into a soggy and greasy mess before they reach you are high. It may be wiser to just make the restaurant's egg rolls yourself at home. Considering they come together in only 30 minutes, it may be quicker than the food delivery wait times over the weekend.

Recipe: Copycat Chili's Southwest Egg Rolls

In a sea of greasy, spicy, and deep-fried game day foods, a veggie-packed appetizer may add a much-needed fresh option to the table. Take a bag of sweet white corn and mix it with cilantro, scallions, jalapeño, and green chilies for a 15-minute dip that can be made as far as four days in advance. The combination of mayo, sour cream, and cheddar cheese makes the corn dip creamy and a dash of apple cider vinegar will add a zing. If you want to take things up a notch, swap the frozen corn for fire-roasted.

Recipe: Creamy Corn Dip

Who doesn't love a pretzel, especially if it comes in a bite-sized form that can be popped into your mouth by the handful? It may seem like pretzels, or any bread for that matter, are complicated and time-consuming to make but that's not necessarily the case. All you need are nine ingredients — including coarse salt to top the pretzel bites — and 40 minutes of prep. A five-minute flash of heat in the oven and you'll have 50 soft and delicious pretzel bites that also work as excellent vehicles for spicy dips.

Recipe: Soft Pretzel Bites

Minimal effort, maximum flavor: That's the mantra when it comes to Super Bowl snacks and this bean dip ticks both boxes. All you really need is a few cans of refried beans and cream cheese folded in together with a packet of taco seasoning. Spread the mix in a baking tray, sprinkle generous shreds of Mexican cheese on top, and pop the tray in the oven. Forget all about it for half an hour as the oven does its job and turns it into a creamy dip bubbling with melted cheese.

Recipe: Bean Dip

Ever wondered why pigs in a blanket make excellent appetizers over the holiday season? Taste aside, these crowd-pleasers are incredibly easy to make in big batches and are lovely finger foods for huge parties — all things that you also want Super Bowl snacks to be. Whip up the holiday staple using all but two ingredients — hot dogs and cans of crescent rolls — and serve them hot with Sriracha, ketchup, and mustard.

Recipe: Pigs In A Blanket

Super Bowl is probably not the best time to be thinking of healthy snacks but if you'd like to avoid deep-fried foods where you can, these air fryer wings are an excellent alternative to the fried ones. While this recipe uses Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce for heat, you can easily swap it with sriracha or add red pepper flakes, ghost pepper powder, or cayenne if you're hosting partygoers with a particularly high threshold for spice.

Recipe: Air Fryer Sticky Wing

Certain party foods like queso are evergreen and can easily fit into everything from kid's parties and Thanksgiving meals to Super Bowl Sundays. Besides, when was the last time you met someone who turned down a chip dunked in warm melted cheese? The trick to making this pot of velvety queso is swapping pre-shredded cheese that's filled with anti-caking agents and stabilizers for blocks of cheese that you shred yourself. Once the queso is ready, serve it with nachos, chips, or even soft pretzel bites.

Recipe: Queso

Recipe developer Hayley MacLean comes from a family of onion ring lovers, so she knows the importance of crispy onion rings that nail the onion-to-batter ratio. This is why she first coats the onion rings in a flour and baking powder mixture, then dunks them in a thin milk, flour, and egg batter and adds another coating of panko breadcrumbs to ensure maximum crunch. Lay out a selection of dipping sauces — barbecue, tartar, sriracha, and ketchup — with the onion rings and kick back before the game begins.

Recipe: Crispy Fried Onion Rings

Don't have more than five minutes to spare for a quick snack? Fret not, this cold spinach artichoke dip is here to save the day. As long as you have cream cheese, mozzarella, sour cream, frozen spinach, and artichokes as well as onion powder, salt, and pepper for seasoning, the most complicated part about the recipe will be chopping and mixing things together. Because this spinach artichoke dip is a sturdy one, it goes best with equally sturdy pita chips.

Recipe: Cold Spinach Artichoke Dip

A snack table that doesn't feature potatoes in any shape, size, or form is, unfortunately, a sad one. But while most whip up fries or frozen tater tots, here's an appetizer that your guests probably won't expect: Hasselback potatoes. Once you understand the technique to make small incisions on the potatoes, the rest is easy. The potatoes are brushed with a garlic, oil, and parsley dressing and baked till crisp and golden. You could even serve them with cheese, bacon, or sour cream on top to shake things up.

Recipe: Crispy Hasselback Potatoes

Although a 7-layer dip requires a cart full of ingredients including readymade guac, salsa, shredded cheese, and refried beans, there's no cooking involved which perhaps explains why the dip is so popular for game days and Super Bowl parties. Plus, the entire dip can also be made early in the day so that all you have to do is take it out of the refrigerator before kickoff and dig into the layered dip with nacho chips or tacos as you watch the game.

Recipe: 7-Layer Dip

Not that there's anything wrong with a fried chicken wing, but deep frying can be a menace — hot oil can splatter everywhere and cause a huge mess to clean up after. Then, there's the entire ordeal of disposing of the oil afterward. Who wants that when you've got the Super Bowl to look forward to? Ditch the deep-fried chicken wings for these baked ones without compromising on the crispy texture. Unlike fried wings, these won't require too much hands-on attention as aside from 15 minutes of prep, the wings pretty much cook themselves in the oven.

Recipe: Baked Chicken Wing

No chip 'n' dip platter is complete without salsa, but there's more you can do with the saucy red dip than simply dunk chips in it. Recipe developer Nathaniel Lee recommends spreading it onto bread for a Mexican bruschetta or glazing it onto grilled meats — one little dip can be repurposed into several different snacks. Besides, it's easy to tweak the heat of this recipe to your liking: use jalapeños, banana peppers, or bell peppers for less spice and habaneros if you like your salsa with a bit more heat.

Recipe: Salsa

If you have salsa on the table, a good ol' bowl of guac is usually expected to be nearby. So here it is, a quick and easy five-minute guacamole. While the recipe only uses six ingredients, think of it as a basic structure you can add your own flair to. Red peppers, green peppers, and dry black pepper can bring a touch of heat whereas spices like cumin, garlic powder, or onion powder can add a rich layer of savory flavor to the classic dip. You could even add chopped celery for crunch or cooked bacon bits because, well, why not?

Recipe: Guacamole

The salsa is cooking, the guac is chilling, and you're about to prep your chips and veggie sticks but hold on a moment: Why not swap the run-of-the-mill snack platter for a tray of sheet pan nachos that everyone can dig into? Plus, recipe developer Melissa Olivieri assures that although these nachos look very impressive, they can be made by someone with non-existent culinary skills as "this is 100 percent a beginner's recipe." Just gather all the components, chop the veggies, brown the ground beef, and layer it all onto a pan. It's as easy as that.

Recipe: Sheet Pan Nachos

Fried pickles may have strong southern roots but they have become something of a staple at sports bars across the country where they're served as salty, crunchy, and juicy snacks. This recipe replicates the classic bar snack at home with an air fryer using no more than 20 minutes of your time. While the fried dill pickle slices can be served as an appetizer on their own with any ranch-style dip, they can also be an unexpected (but tasty) addition to veggie sticks and dip platters.

Recipe: Air Fryer Pickles

If you're going to serve something healthy on Super Bowl Sunday, it's going to have to tick all the boxes in the taste department, unless you want it sitting untouched on the table at the end of the game. Kristen Carli, recipe developer and registered dietitian nutritionist, has just the snack for you. Her Instant Pot boiled peanuts are not only packed with a ton of protein, but they're seasoned with a total of five spices (in addition to salt and pepper), which include garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, dried thyme, and smoked paprika.

Recipe: Instant Pot Boiled Peanuts

Statistics say Americans drink a whopping 325 million gallons of beer during the Super Bowl, which is an average of 10 cans of beer per person. Recipe developer Hayley MacLean's take on the game day drink of choice is a tad... different. She likes her beer whisked into a cheese sauce with mustard, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce! While the sauce is best enjoyed warm with slices of baguette or pretzels, it can also be prepared a few days in advance. All you have to do before the game begins is take the sauce out of the refrigerator and gently heat it.

Recipe: Beer Cheese Sauce

When in doubt about what snack to serve at a gathering, deviled eggs are always a safe bet. Unfortunately, while you think this, so does everyone else, which means it can be awfully boring when every party features the usual tray of yolk-stuffed hardboiled eggs with a miserly dash of paprika. This recipe, however, keeps the simplicity that makes deviled eggs the go-to party food but switches up its plain flavor by frying up some bacon, chopping it up along with chives and jalapeño, and sprinkling them on top of the deviled eggs.

Recipe: Bacon Jalapeno Deviled Eggs

Meet the bigger, thicker, and spicier version of a buffalo wing: the hot wing. According to recipe developer Keith Kamikawa, the difference between a buffalo wing and a hot wing is like that of ketchup and marinara. Spicier hot wings get their heat from the sauce that they're tossed in as well as a Tabasco-flavored brine. While the recipe has several heat-reducing substitutes, a hot wing is best eaten as the name suggests — hot. In the rare case that you have leftovers, a cold wing can also liven up sad Monday lunches after the excitement of Super Bowl Sunday fizzles out.

Recipe: Hot Wings

If the mighty chicken wing can be air fried, so can a mozzarella stick. The trick to nailing the crisp exterior is to line up a five-step dredging station. Toss the mozzarella in a bowl of flour, dunk them in cracked eggs, coat them in a seasoned mixture of breadcrumbs, go back to the eggs, and then repeat the breadcrumb coating. To ensure a more intact and crisp coating, the breaded mozzarella sticks are frozen for an hour. Simply toss them in the air fryer for 10 minutes before the game begins.

Recipe: Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks

Running low on snacks and looking for something to quickly whip up between Super Bowl commercials? As long as you have the ingredients for it, this southern pimento cheese dip will do the trick. You'll need room-temperature cream cheese, mayonnaise, pre-shredded cheddar cheese, dill pickle juice, Worcestershire sauce, grated onion, and pimentos, plus salt, pepper, and garlic powder to season the dip. Simply fold the ingredients together, and voila! A quick dip that you can wolf down with a bag of store-bought crackers.

Recipe: Southern Pimento Cheese

Any recipe that involves simply assembling ingredients and leaving the rest of the work to a piece of cooking equipment is a Super Bowl-worthy snack in our eyes. These roast beef sliders not only tick both boxes, but they are also great for when you want to add a snack to the menu that's on the more filling side and can even double as dinner. Besides, did we mention the warm melted cheese and toasted buns brushed with herb-infused butter?

Recipe: Roast Beef Sliders

Sure, you could quickly pop a bag of microwave popcorn that often swims in a truckload of butter and oil. But did you know that air frying popcorn kernels doesn't require any fat at all? At its simplest, you only need to throw some popcorn kernels in an air fryer and they'll come out with the same texture as microwave popcorn. To amp up the flavor, toss them in some oil or melted butter — you have control over the quantity you use. For a bolder flavor, use seasonings like cheddar powder, garlic salt, chili lime, or even cinnamon sugar for a sweet twist.

Recipe: Air Fryer Popcorn

If you like baked or jacket potatoes, these potato skins are a snacky spin on the filling meal which also doubles up as bite-sized finger foods for game days. Instead of heaping a mountain of toppings on a baked potato, this recipe requires you to scoop out the flesh of a baked potato, mix it with bacon, cheese, and cream cheese, and stuff it back into the crisp skins. The potato skins are given another round in the oven till the cheese melts and turns into a golden-brown crust. Gobble down the crisp, cheesy, bacon-filled potato bites with a cold glass of beer!

Recipe: Loaded Potato Skins

A take on the French onion soup dip that was once a party classic in the 1960s, developer Kristen Carli's recipe swaps the dehydrated onion soup powder with freshly caramelized onions. Although it's more time-consuming, this version of the dip also packs in bigger flavors. Sour cream and mayonnaise make the dip's base, minced garlic, salt, and pepper are used for seasoning it, and three diced onions are patiently cooked with brown sugar on low heat after which they are folded into the base. The result is a dip with generous mouthfuls of caramelized onions in each bite.

Recipe: Caramelized Onion Dip