These Perfectly Portable Game-Day Snacks Are Tailor-Made for Your Next Tailgating Adventure or Potluck

Creamy pickle dip, salty snack mix, and more easy-to-transport dishes to take to your next tailgate or sports-viewing potluck.

By Liz Cook
Published November 08, 2024
Illustration of gameday snacks at a tailgate

Serious Eats / Inma Hortas

For high-strung cooks, tailgating can be as stressful as the game. When you’re transporting dishes and serving a crowd, you have to relinquish a certain amount of consistency and control. 

The good news? You can play around with potluck classics and relax a little as a host. No one’s expecting you to construct elaborate tablescapes. At best, you’re selecting dishes to be doled out at room temperature from the wheel well of a Subaru Outback.

Lean into the casual vibes and let stadium food be your guide. Ask yourself: Could I eat this out of a tiny baseball helmet? And then: should I?

The recipes below fit the bill. They’re also portable, practical, and satisfying—no matter how many mysterious liquids you’ve consumed in the parking lot.

  • Fried Pickle Dip

    Bowl of pickle dip garnished with panko, dill and pickles, surrounded by a wooden plate full of potato chips, on a green tabeltop

    Serious Eats / Robby Lozano

    This dish has everything, and when I say “everything,” I mean “pickles.” It has pickle juice. It has pickle chips. It has pickle-flavored potato chips to dip in the dill pickle dip. It has the pleasing crunch of toasted breadcrumbs (these, too are pickled, somehow).

  • Deviled Eggs

    20190524-wursthall-deviled-eggs-beauty2-edit
    Erik Drobey

    Deviled egg haters are untrustworthy. Weed them from your friend group with these intense, mustardy eggs seasoned with the brine from a jar of pickled cherry peppers.

  • Salsa Verde

    Mexican clay bowls with tortilla chips and charred salsa verde on a colorful traditional Mexican textile, with a hand dipping a chip into the salsa

    Serious Eats / Two Bites

    This charred tomatillo salsa uses both fresh and cooked cilantro, making it the perfect opportunity to ask your friends with the gene whether they taste raw or cooked soap.

  • Roasted Tomato Salsa

    Overhead view of a hand dipping a chip in salsa

    Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

    Broiling fresh tomatoes concentrates their flavors for a zippy salsa that will inspire Pace Picante lovers to dream different dreams.

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  • Seven Layer Buffalo Chicken Dip

    20160129-7-layer-buffalo-chicken-dip-finished-morgan-eisenberg.jpg
    Morgan Eisenberg

    What is a seven-layer dip but a savory trifle? Lob that conversation starter into the crowd to keep them occupied while you sneak a fifth helping. This dip is a fossil record of good ideas, from refried beans and bacon to Buffalo-saucy chicken with blue cheese and ranch.

  • Kettle Corn

    Red bowl full of Kettle corn on a red and green striped surface

    Serious Eats / Morgan Hunt Glaze

    Sure, you can make this kettle corn the night before the game—the corn will stay crunchy, airy, and subtly salty-sweet. But this one-pot, five-minute recipe is ideal for procrastinators.

  • Chaat-Spiced Chex Mix

    20170921-chaat-vicky-wasik-70.jpg
    Vicky Wasik

    For marathon tailgates, a shelf-stable snack mix is key. Liven up the tri-Chex melange with chaat masala, a tangy spice blend heavily flavored by black mineral salt, green mango powder, and tamarind.

  • Apple Hand Pies

    Overhead view of apple hand pies

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    This is a truly portable dessert—the Go-Gurt of technique-forward homemade pastry—allowing you to wander around the parking lot in search of friends with snacks to trade.

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