Four Healthy Super Bowl Snack Ideas
Super Bowl party food is famous for its decadence. Meaty, cheesy, crunchy and greasy, these snacks are certainly delicious, but they can also put you in a coma before taking a break. Fortunately, there are simple menu modifications that can be made a little easier without sacrificing taste.
Make your own crispy pizza
Pizza and soccer are a winning combination and I would never advise you to give it up. But if you still want to make it a little more useful, without losing the delicious filling or, God forbid, cheese, just take a cast-iron pan and a tortilla .
This pizza not only epitomizes the bar-style super-crispy pizza, but replacing the traditional crust with tortilla takes away the extra weight. (It’s also very fast.) The above video shows how it’s done, but all you have to do is heat some oil in a skillet until it starts to shimmery, then reduce heat to low and wipe off the oil. Lay out the tortilla and top with sauce, cheese, vegetables, and whatever else you want. Place the whole thing under the brazier for three minutes or so and enjoy.
Grill or steam chicken wings
For me, chicken wings are just as important a part of the Super Bowl as the half-time show, although to be honest, the wings usually bring me more joy. If you want to do some wing work but don’t want to fry, there are two different ways you can get juicy meat and crunchy skin without excess oil.
- Cook on a pair of : Alton Brown knows his stuff with chicken wings, and a long-time cooking guru loves cooking wings at the pair before putting them in the oven . To follow in his footsteps, simply steam the wings for ten minutes, then bake them on a cooling rack over a baking sheet for 30 minutes at 425 ° F, tossing them in your favorite sauce at the 20 minute mark.
- Glue them on and grill : Grilling is great because not only does it require no vegetable oil, it also gives your wings a nice charred flavor. To cook whole wings, completely surrounded by the crispest skin, take a page from the Epicurious book “unfold the wings and stick a metal skewer through the base of the shin, across the plane and forward. – Extend the tip of the skewer at least over the joint connecting the plane and the wingtip so that the wing remains stationary on the grid. “
Any method works with almost any sauce, so I’ll let you choose your own adventure there. You should probably cook a whole group, you can never have too many sauce options.
Wrap things in prosciutto, not bacon
I would never advise you to skip the pork snack, but replacing the bacon with prosciutto reduces the fat while maintaining the flavor. Here are some of my favorite prosciutto-wrapped foods:
- Pineapple : Toast the pineapple spears or cubes until they are a good color, then wrap them in prosciutto and secure with a toothpick or two.
- Asparagus: You can wrap fried, chilled asparagus in cold prosciutto, or wrap raw asparagus in salted slices and then fry until the prosciutto is crispy and tender. Both options are good.
- Melon: The classic combination of prosciutto with melone sauce may sound a little “very” for a soccer event, but none of your guesswork will complain. Salted ham is the perfect partner for sweet, delicate melon (I use melon, but honeydew works too), and the refreshing factor can be enhanced by sprinkling with fresh mint leaves.
- Figs: Do like my main girl Ina Garten and wrap the fig halves in prosciutto. Brush with olive oil and bake in the oven at 425 degrees until the figs are tender (about 10 minutes). Nobody would be angry if you sprinkled with crumbled blue cheese.
- Cheese: Okay, this might not be the healthiest snack, but calcium is good for your bones and small balls of fresh mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto are good for the soul, so I’ll stick with that suggestion.
Yes, 80% of the above combinations include any part of the plant, but I swear I’m not trying to be too healthy here; prosciutto is really good with fruits and vegetables.
Create a Vegetable Tray to End All Vegetable Trays
If I have one problem with store-bought vegetable trays, it is that they are just visually unattractive. There’s something sterile and depressing about perfectly uniform young carrots and anemic celery sticks trapped in their little plastic cages, and you can do that much better. To break out of the damp routine, recruit these plant superstars:
- Rainbow Carrots: Fun Fact: The carrots were originally purple and were allegedly genetically modified to honor the House of Orange and the Dutch independence struggle . This may or may not be true, but purple carrots (both red carrots and yellow carrots) are simply more fun to watch and eat than their normal cousins. You can buy rainbow carrots from Trader Joe’s or any trendy grocery store. Simply cut them into thin, diagonal crisp-like slices and fan them around a delicious sauce or hummus.
- Endive: I love the edible container, and this sturdy little leaf can hold a whole assortment of pasta, cheese, or anything else you’d eat with chips. Simply rip up the leaves and place the filling on the firm end of the leaf. You can use the filling in almost an infinite number of ways, but my favorite combination is a chevre ball topped with dried tomatoes (I love the 80s) or maybe half a pecan. Trader Joe’s Blue Cheese Pecan Dip sauce is also a great option.
- Sugar Peas: Crunch is a very important factor in making a good vegetable pan, and sugar peas have it. They are also very sweet, which is probably why they are called “sugar peas”.
- Tiny Potatoes : A bunch of fried underyearlings mixed with a little olive oil and flaked salt are not only tasty at room temperature, they are naturally very low in fat. (Potatoes don’t have the healthiest reputation, but the filling is to blame.) Spread out the toothpicks and watch them disappear.
- Don’t forget the sauces: Hummus is a classic “healthy” sauce, but there are tons of options outside of the garbanzo world. If you want to preserve canned food, you can use this simple formula to turn almost any jar of beans into a sauce. If you want something creamy but don’t want to dive into a vat of keso, this light horseradish yogurt sauce is for you. (It’s delicious in everything, especially that tiny potato I mentioned.) Finally, if you want something that will appeal to omnivores and vegans alike, try this incredibly delicious spicy cashew spread . Looks a little odd, but tastes amazing.
So while I’m not suggesting you replace every Super Bowl snack with something healthier, I don’t think anyone would complain about a spread of the foods listed above. I know I wouldn’t, and I am definitely not called “clean.” (My boyfriend calls me “Garbage Panda.” Lovely, but still.)