Football Game Watching Party | The Everyday Hostess

It is finally football season y’all! One of the best times of the year (besides Christmas, of course)! That means weekends filled with tailgates and game watching parties, cheering on your favorite teams and enjoying yummy football snacks!

During a TCU home game weekend, you will find us camping out on Saturday’s near Amon G. Carter Stadium jumping between tailgates and reminiscing with friends. However, away game weekends are a little bit harder to centrally gather all of our friends. Of course, there are always TCU game watching parties at the local bars, but sometimes it is nice to enjoy the game from the comfort of your home with some good friends!

I recently hosted a TCU game watching party at my apartment with about 20 of our friends. Kick off was at 3:45pm, so I had all morning to prepare my favorite game watching appetizers for our guests. Football snacks are the epitome of comfort food, so it is usually pretty easy to find some delicious warm dips, sliders, and nachos that the crowd will love. After a little bit of thought into each of my guest’s taste preferences, I came up with this delicious menu that was an absolute hit!

Menu:
Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers || Spinach Artichoke Dip ||

BBQ Pulled Chicken Sliders || Buffalo Chicken Wonton Cups ||

Buffalo Chicken Nachos || Cinnamon Brown Sugar Popcorn ||

Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupcakes || Horned Frog Punch

When hosting a game watching party, I recommend providing 4 to 5 appetizers (I usually divide the size of the party by 3 to determine how many appetizers…so 15 people attending divided by 3 equals 5 appetizers) and asking everyone to bring their favorite snack and beer as well. That way, you know for sure that you have the food handled in case someone forgets, and everyone else’s snacks are bonus! This menu was pretty simple and can be done the day of the party. However, since everything the day of a party takes about 25% longer than expected, I like to prepare as much as I can the night before. This menu is the perfect balance of night before and day of preparation.

I started off the night before making the Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupcakes. These can easily be refrigerated in an airtight container overnight, so you don’t have to worry for one minute about them the day of your party! The Spinach Artichoke Dip is also an easy appetizer to make the night before and refrigerate. Then all you have to do is pop it in the oven for about an hour before the party and serve!

As far as the day of goes, I woke up a little early to make the BBQ Pulled Chicken Sliders. These are an absolute breeze because they only take about 5 minutes of preparation and then the crock-pot will take over for the next 6-8 hours. Then all you have to do is assemble and enjoy! The majority of the day of preparation is for the Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers, the Buffalo Chicken Wonton Cups , the Buffalo Chicken Nachos, and the Cinnamon Brown Sugar Popcorn. Each of these appetizers take about 45 minutes of preparation and cooking, so I would recommend starting each of these snacks about 2 hours prior to kick-off.

This menu is absolutely delicious and there is sure to be something that will please everyone!