37 Super Bowl Snacks to Kick the Game Off Right

Homemade Potato Chips

Pretty much the laziest, most predictable option for snacking is buying a bag of potato chips. No one's going to complain, but it's boring. It's far more interesting to make your own chips at home. Not only do they come out crispy and delicious, but you can experiment with unusual flavorings—miso soup mix and crumbled nori is one of our favorite combinations.

Flavored Popcorn

The flavor combinations we use for homemade chips also work great on popcorn. We've got a few others, too, like a sweet combination of matcha and white chocolate or Italian-inspired bagna cauda (anchovies, garlic, olive oil, and butter). As for making the popcorn itself, our brown-bag microwave method is as easy as it gets.

Of course, if you want your popcorn to be a little more candy-like, we've got you covered there, too, with Stella's crispy chocolate version.

Homemade Cheez-Its

Cheez-Its are always a popular snack, and this homemade version is even better than the original. Most Cheez-It clones are made with butter and water, but we use cream for a richer flavor. To give the dough the right texture, we opt for a Microplane instead of a box grater for the cheese. A sharp yellow cheddar like Tillamook or Cabot is the most obvious way to go here, but Manchego makes for a fun variation.

Homemade Carr's-Style Whole Wheat Crackers

If you're planning on setting out some cheese for snacking, you'll probably want to throw in some crackers to serve alongside. Sure, you could just go to the store and pick up a sleeve of some cracker-like thing, but you could also go the extra mile and throw together some homemade Carr's-style whole wheat crackers. The touch of sweetness complements cheeses of all varieties.

Homemade Wheat Thins

In a similar vein, if you throw together a batch of these homemade Wheat Thins, your family probably won't believe you made them yourself, but they'll be happy nonetheless. You may want to double up on the recipe, though, since these are best eaten by the handful—using both hands, that is.

Homemade Tortilla Chips

These homemade tortilla chips are for all the salsa and guac and the dips you're going to lay out, but they are also the ideal base for nachos. Yes, store-bought chips are totally fine and, yes, store-bought chips are super convenient, but nothing can compare to a freshly fried chip, liberally salted by your own hand. And for those nachos? Check out our nacho recipes here!

Thai-Style Shrimp Cakes With Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

There's no reason game-day snacks have to be junk food. For a more refined option, try these Thai-style shrimp cakes, nicely spicy from jalapeños and beautifully green from a big handful of cilantro. You can serve them with our homemade sweet chili dipping sauce, or simply doctor up store-bought sauce with fish sauce and lime juice.

Cuñapes/Pão de Queijo

These delightfully cheesy and chewy dough balls go by a variety of names in South America, but they are invariably delicious no matter what you call them. The key to them is a specific type of tapioca starch—you will want to figure out how to get it in advance, as some of the ones more typically available in grocery stores are too finely milled. We strongly suggest you get your hands on sour tapioca starch, since the tang it brings to the bread goes quite nicely with the combination of cheeses. Fair warning: They're pretty craveable.

Buttermilk Drop Biscuits With Garlic and Cheddar

While we're talking about cheesy bread, it seems appropriate to highlight these cheddary beauties. Aside from their taste, which is Stella-r, these biscuits are easy to make and easy to clean up after. Plus, you can make the dry mix way ahead of time (and that "dry mix" includes the finely shredded cheese). Just combine it with buttermilk when you're ready to bake the biscuits up.

Hoisin-Glazed Cocktail Meatballs

This updated version of old-school cocktail meatballs starts with a 50-50 blend of pork and beef, which we bind with panko and egg. Mix gently, roll into balls, and bake. What really sets them apart is the hoisin-based glaze flavored with ketchup, honey, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Feel free to make the meatballs ahead of time—they freeze and reheat wonderfully.

Chaat-Spiced Chex Mix

Give your family a sweet and spicy treat with this chaat-spiced Chex Mix. If they've never had chaat, it'll blow them away; if they have, they'll probably think you're a genius for coming up with the Chex Mix combo. Another reason why it's a great candidate for game day is that it can be made way ahead of time.

Pretzel Bao With Sweet Sesame-Hot Mustard Pork

Pretzels are an iconic sports snack, but these are a little different than what you'll find at a stadium. In a bit of German-Chinese fusion, we stuff pretzel buns with roast pork mixed with mustard. The combination of pork and mustard is reminiscent of German senfbraten, but instead of German mustard, we use Chinese hot mustard mixed with sesame paste, honey, and chives.

The Best French Bread Pizza

While it might conjure up memories of the school cafeteria, French bread pizza is a thing of beauty when done right. To make it, we start by loading up bread (we're talking supermarket "French" bread here, not real baguettes) with garlic butter. Then we melt on a thin layer of cheese. This protects the bread from getting soggy when you add the sauce and a final layer of cheese.

The Best English Muffin Pepperoni Pizza

Sticking with pizza-like objects, English muffins are another great choice for topping with sauce and cheese. Making an English muffin pizza really isn't that much different than making a regular pizza. One thing to keep in mind is that if you're using pepperoni (and you absolutely should), fry it up in a skillet first—the rest of the pizza cooks too quickly for it to crisp properly.

Pizzadilla (Quesadilla Pizza)

Our bar-style tortilla pizzas would already make good Super Bowl snacks, but these pizzadillas are even better. You start by making a pizza quesadilla, stuffing flour tortillas with pizza sauce and mozzarella. Once the quesadilla crisps up, you finish it like our tortilla pizza with more sauce and cheese, basil, and whatever other toppings you'd like.

Bagel Bites

In the land of pizza-like things, the bagel bite is the diminutive king. Who doesn't love bagel bites? No one, that's who. And after you've made the recipe and received praise from all your family, you'll also know how easy it is to make some of the best bagels you can get anywhere.

Crispy Deep-Fried Jalapeño Poppers

We love jalapeño poppers in theory, but in practice, they can be too hard to eat—you have to try to bite through the pepper and end up with cheese and grease everywhere. The solution is to use jalapeño cross-sections instead of the typical half peppers, which create bite-sized poppers that are way less messy to eat.

Crispy and Gooey Baked Jalapeño Poppers

Another problem with jalapeño poppers: Deep-frying is a lot of work when there's a game to watch. This oven-baked recipe makes crispy poppers without a pot of scalding oil. We fill the poppers with a gooey cheese sauce made of Monterey Jack and sharp cheddar and brush them with fat before baking to help replicate the flavors you get from frying.

Buffalo Blue Cheese Deviled Eggs

Few foods are as closely associated with the Super Bowl as Buffalo wings, but they aren't the only thing that taste good Buffalo-style. Case in point: these deviled eggs, which take the standard mayo and egg yolk filling and add Frank's Red Hot, blue cheese, and celery.

Buffalo Chicken Puff Pastry Waffles

One of our favorite alternative uses for a waffle iron is to roll up tasty ingredients in puff pastry and cook them into a crispy, flaky waffle sandwich. We've come up with half a dozen variations, but for game day, the obvious choice is this Buffalo chicken puff pastry waffle, made with shredded chicken, blue cheese, and Frank's.

Waffle Iron "Fried" Cheese (Queso Frito)

Don't put the waffle iron away just yet—we use it to make one of the best takes on mozzarella sticks you'll ever have. We cut out squares of low-moisture mozz (though other melting cheeses work), coat them in a simple breading, and then "fry" them in the waffle iron until crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. It's easier than deep-frying, and the divots from the waffle iron help to scoop up salsa.

Bacon, Bratwurst, and Beer Cheese Potato Skins

The most important part of potato skins are, well, the skins. Few things are less appetizing than dry, leathery potato skins. To make sure they're crispy, we bake the potatoes twice, coating them with bacon fat each time. For the filling, we go with a combination of caramelized onions, brats cooked in beer, and creamy beer cheese.

Foolproof Onion Rings

As beautiful as a perfect onion ring is, most fail in a variety of ways. Burned onions, too-thick breading, and split shells are bad, but the ultimate failure is when the onion is undercooked and slides out of the breading in a single strand when you try to take a bite. The easiest way to tenderize the onions? Just freeze them after cutting.

Easy Pull-Apart Pepperoni Garlic Knots

This easy snack is impressive enough to take some attention away from the game, but it's made with little more than pizza dough, cheese, garlic, pepperoni, and herbs. Better yet, it turns out just fine with store-bought pizza dough. The most time-intensive part is just letting the dough rest, but you can assemble the dish the night before—all you'll have to do on Sunday is stick it in the oven a half hour before kickoff.

Spicy Chicken Quesadillas

Using a generous amount of oil in a hot pan gives these quesadillas their puffy, crisp exterior. They're filled with a salty-spicy combination of pepper jack cheese, shredded chicken, and pickled jalapeño. The quesadilla's gentle heat is perfectly balanced by a cold beer—or two.

Deconstructed Deviled Eggs With Mayonnaise, Anchovies, and Capers

Deconstructed deviled eggs may sound complicated, but they're a breeze to make. Instead of removing the yolks, these eggs are simply soft-boiled, sliced in half, and topped with a dollop of mayonnaise, an anchovy fillet, a few capers, and fresh herbs.

Grilled Turkish-Style Chicken Wings

If you're tired of your usual roster of wings recipes, make these Turkish-style wings instead. A mixture of hot Turkish pepper paste, olive oil, spices, parsley, garlic, and a bit of pomegranate molasses acts both as the marinade and the dip for these sweet and spicy wings.

Crispy Potato Cups

Perhaps no food is more game day–ready than potato skins. The crisp skins, loaded up with all sorts of toppings, are delicious in theory, but often they don't deliver. We've updated the classic snack to be more crisp and flavorful but just as nostalgia-inducing as ever. Serve them plain, or try one of the variations included in the recipe.

Korean-Style Fire Chicken (Buldak) With Cheese

In Korea, this spicy, cheesy chicken dish is served at bars, to soak up alcohol, which means it's literally designed to be served during the Super Bowl. To make this dish, chicken thighs are marinated in a spicy gochujang-heavy sauce, before they're chargrilled and covered with melty mozzarella.

Savory Chiroti

This Indian treat is typically served during the Diwali holiday, but that shouldn't stop you from making—and eating—it all year. The dough is infused with black pepper, brushed with a mixture of ghee and rice flour, rolled into spirals, and deep fried.

Mustardy Deviled Eggs From Wursthall

These deviled eggs are pleasantly mustardy, thanks to a combination of Dijon mustard and pickled mustard seeds. The addition of the liquid from a jar of pickled cherry peppers adds brininess to the filling, while dill brings freshness to each bite.

Cheesesteak Nachos

Would anyone in their right mind ever expect cheesesteak nachos? No, probably not—but you definitely should. The nachos take inspiration from the classic Philly sandwich, covering homemade tortilla chips with warm cheese sauce, hot cherry peppers, and sautéed onions. It's a cheesesteak in every bite.

Smoky Bacon-Wrapped Baby Potatoes

Bacon and potatoes are a match made in heaven, so it's no surprise that these smoky bacon-wrapped baby potatoes are very, very delicious. The small potatoes are tossed with a spicy seasoning mixture, wrapped in juicy slices of bacon, and roasted until the bacon is crisp and the potatoes are fork-tender.

Fried Plantain Chips

The key to success with this recipe is cutting the plantains into uniform slices for even cooking, which we lean on a mandoline for. Once fried, you're left with a crispy and crunchy alternative to potato chips that can be jazzed up with different seasonings, like our Pollo Campero–seasoned version.

Honey-Roasted Peanuts

Maybe you're enjoying the game at home instead of at your favorite bar, but that doesn't mean you can't bring the bar snacks to you. These crunchy, roasted peanuts are coated in a honey butter glaze and finished with a light dusting of sugar and salt—and arguably even better when made at home.

Beer Cheese

This glossy, smooth sauce was made for dipping with pretzels—or anything really. A full-flavored beer will give these cheese dip character, while Dijon, Worcestershire, and hot sauce round out the savory sharpness of the cheddar and mild bitterness from the beer.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets With Sweet 'n' Sour Sauce

McDonald's chicken nuggets are famous for their uniform and tender meat, savory flavor, and crisp coating. Our recipe replicates that version with ingredients like chicken thighs, chicken broth powder, and white pepper. Double frying ensures a crisp exterior that reveals juicy, tender meat with each bite. We've got you covered with the sweet 'n' sour sauce recipe, too!