A Definitive Ranking of Super Bowl Appetizers
There are few people on this planet who know less about sports than I do. Football in particular is a blind spot; perhaps the sport was too intertwined with my religious trauma growing up in the South. You might understandably think that means I don’t engage in Super Bowl festivities, but you’d be wrong. At its core, the Super Bowl isn’t really about football at all—food is at the center of the annual gathering. After all, what is a Super Bowl party without wings or chips and dip? Just a bunch of people dressed in garish polyester screaming at a TV.
Super Bowl food is its own genre. It’s bar food adapted to a home atmosphere, where dips and appetizers play a starring role, beating out the grilled fare you’d expect at a tailgate. Some dishes are deeply flavorful and indulgent, oozing with cheese or creamy sauces. Others tend toward bland, really only becoming appetizing after you finish off the dregs of your third beer. All of them, though, are rich and, for many of us, reminiscent of family fun in the midst of an otherwise depressing month. But which are worth the time to prepare, and which are better left off the menu entirely? This is a definitive ranking of Super Bowl appetizers.
10. Raw Vegetables with Ranch
We’ve all seen it before: that flimsy plastic tray piled with baby carrots, celery sticks, whole cherry tomatoes and raw broccoli. If you’re lucky, you may get some snap peas or radishes. At the center of the tray rests a shallow plastic cup of ranch dressing, destined to adulterate all the fresh ingredients that surround it. It’s the saddest of the Super Bowl appetizers, a last-minute attempt to put something green on a table that’s otherwise loaded with fried and cheese-stuffed foods.
But the ranch completely negates the purpose of serving fresh veggies in the first place—the last thing I want to do is dip the only fresh ingredient on my plate into a pool of processed dairy. Should you have a vegetable dish at your Super Bowl party? Of course. But maybe make a salad instead of subjecting your guests to this abomination of an appetizer.
9. Pigs in a Blanket
Pigs in a blanket are one of the cutest, most visually appealing Super Bowl appetizers you could have at your party, with the miniature wieners dressed in jackets of flaky pastry. But ultimately, pigs in a blanket are deeply bland at their core. There’s really nothing interesting going on with this dish; the result is a soft texture and fatty flavor profile that just doesn’t deliver. My suggestion? Serve your pigs in a blanket with some ultra-spicy Dijon mustard to give it the pop of acidity and flavor it needs.
8. Nachos
I don’t mean to hate on nachos here. I love them; they’re just not ideal for Super Bowl snacking. They’re messy, and they’re not what you want to eat when you’re precariously balancing a paper plate on your lap on someone’s nice leather couch. Plus, it’s hard to scoop the perfect bite onto your plate. You’re likely to miss out on the glob of cheese and salsa you would’ve snagged if the bowl had been right in front of you. Save the nachos for when you’re enjoying a game alone.
7. Spinach Artichoke Dip
In theory, spinach artichoke dip should be one of the most delicious Super Bowl appetizers. In reality, though, it’s usually not. It can often be thin and runny, or it’s so creamy that you can’t really even taste the flavor of the vegetables. This dish’s saving grace is the soft but slightly chewy texture of the artichokes, which should be left in decent-sized chunks. The chips or crackers you serve with this dip can really make or break the dish—make sure you don’t use super salty chips if you’re already putting a lot of salt in the dip.