We’re all craving fun food for Super Sunday, and finger-licking Buffalo wings are often what come to mind. But game day is a busy day for take-out, and you probably don’t want to be frying wings during the game.
There are lots fun—and easy—ways to get the same spicy flavor for your football party.
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
These little morsels have the same flavor as wings, with much less fat. Mix ground chicken with minced celery, bleu cheese, hot sauce, an egg, breadcrumbs, and melted butter. Roll into mini-meatballs, bake, and serve on toothpicks with bleu cheese or ranch dressing for dipping. They’re easy to eat…and easy to reheat, if you’d like to make them ahead of time. Find a recipe here.
Buffalo Chicken Dip
You’ve got to have dip for the party, so make it Buffalo chicken dip. Combine cooked shredded chicken (rotisserie from the grocery store works!) with cream cheese, bleu cheese dressing, hot sauce, and shredded cheddar. Bake or microwave until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Use carrot and celery sticks and crackers for dunking. Make a vegetarian version of this by substituting white beans for chicken.
Buffalo Turkey Sliders
Sliders are the perfect game food since they’re small and easy to hold, but they also pack a lot of flavor. Mix ground turkey with crumbled bleu cheese, melted butter, and hot sauce and grill or cook in a skillet. Slater your slider buns with a mix of diced celery and ranch dressing and layer on some lettuce for crunch. If you can’t find slider rolls, dinner rolls work well.
Buffalo Chicken Crescent Ring
This is too easy for how ridiculously good it is. Unroll the contents of a can of refrigerated crescent roll dough, gently separate into triangles, and place them on a baking sheet so they make a ring (pointed ends out, wide ends overlapping in the center). Mix about 2 cups shredded chicken with half a block of cream cheese. Add hot sauce and a cup of shredded Jack cheese and spread around the center, then fold over the points of dough onto the ring and bake about 20 minutes. Here’s a recipe.
Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower
Please your vegetarian guests (and everyone else, too!) with some kicked-up Buffalo cauliflower. Toss the florets with olive oil then with breadcrumbs, Bake on a baking sheet at 400 degrees F. Once tender and crunchy on the outside, drizzle with a mix of hot sauce and melted butter.
Pulled Buffalo Chicken
No need to go outside of your comfort zone to fit the football game theme. Just modify your favorite pulled chicken recipe to replace BBQ sauce with hot sauce and butter. Spread bleu cheese dressing on rolls and pile the meat on.
Buffalo Shrimp Tacos
Who says you need chicken to get Buffalo flavor? Toss shrimp with a mix of hot sauce and melted butter and roast on a sheet in the oven. Serve them on soft tortillas coated with bleu cheese dressing, shredded lettuce, diced tomato, shredded cheese, and chopped celery.
Brette Sember is Buffalo, NY native with wing sauce in her blood. She’s the author of The Original Muffin Tin Cookbook, available on Amazon as a Kindle. Her website is www.BretteSember.com.
Photo by alanagkelly CC BY-SA