22 Tailgating Recipes for Football Season

These dishes will keep things festive, whether you’re watching the game at home, in the stands or on your phone in the stadium parking lot.

College football kicks off on Saturday, and the pro teams play their first game on Sept. 4, so it’s time to get your tailgating menu ready. Maybe you’re a superfan who paints your face in your team’s colors, or perhaps you just show up for the Rotel dip and halftime show. Either way, we have all the tailgating recipes you need.

1. Slow-Cooker Chili

If you’re watching from home, keep a big pot of this chili from Sarah DiGregorio simmering in the slow cooker on the warm setting, with a buffet of toppings to the side, and let people serve themselves. If you’re headed to the stadium, transfer some to a Thermos and don’t forget to pack spoons. (No slow cooker? That’s OK! You can just as easily prepare this in a Dutch oven on the stovetop.)

Recipe: Slow-Cooker Chili

2. Rotel Dip

Creamy and spicy Rotel dip, named for the brand-name can of tomatoes and chiles in the recipe, is a fan favorite at tailgating parties all over the Southeast. Lidey Heuck’s version is made with Velveeta, a can of Rotel and crumbled ground beef. (In Georgia, we use spicy bulk sausage.)

Recipe: Rotel Dip

3. Ham and Cheese Sliders

Sliders are popular at tailgating parties because they feed a crowd, are good at room temperature and can be eaten with one hand. (May we suggest a beerita for your free hand?) This ham-and-cheese version from Lidey Heuck is savory-sweet and can easily be doubled.

Recipe: Ham and Cheese Sliders

4. Chicken Tenders

Fried chicken in all forms — drumsticks, wings, tenders — makes great football food. For these supremely crunchy tenders, Millie Peartree calls for adding a little of the wet marinade to the flour mixture, which creates a shaggy, crackly crust when fried.

Recipe: Chicken Tenders

5. Southern Broccoli Salad

Get something green on that table in the form of Kay Chun’s recipe, packed with broccoli, bacon, red onion, Cheddar, raisins or dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds in a creamy tangy-sweet dressing. It gets better as it sits, so make it a few hours before, holding off on adding the bacon until you’re about to serve.

Recipe: Southern Broccoli Salad

6. Brownies

Your team might lose the game, but if these chewy-fudgy brownies from Lidey Heuck are on the table, you’ve won. If you’re feeling festive, top them with sprinkles in your team’s colors before baking. Joy is where you find it.

Recipe: Brownies

7. Cheese Straws

Making a big pile of these six-ingredient cheese straws from Kim Severson is a very good idea. The dough comes together in a food processor, and, if you’re a planner, you can roll the dough into several logs, wrap, freeze, then slice off what you need when you need it.

Recipe: Cheese Straws

8. Jalapeño Poppers

Alexa Weibel stuffs these with a bright and tangy cream cheese, wraps them in bacon and pops them in the oven. What’s not to love?

Recipe: Jalapeño Poppers

9. Bricklayer-Style Nachos

Nachos are a blank canvas, and you are the artist. For inspiration, look to Pati Jinich’s version with bricklayer-style beef, a beloved taco filling in Mexico, or Andrea Nguyen’s mapo tofu-topped recipe or Priya and Ritu Krishna’s Indian-ish nachos.

Recipes: Bricklayer-Style Nachos

10. Buffalo Chicken Dip

This recipe is ideal for those cooks who like the idea of Buffalo wings, but would prefer something just a touch less fussy. A 20-minute, one-pan wonder, this creamy and spicy dip might be the day’s real M.V.P. And while the dip can certainly feed a group, readers found other serving-size alternatives. “Is it bad if two people eat the whole thing in an hour?” wrote one NYT Cooking user. “Asking for a friend.”

Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Dip

11. Baked Buffalo Wings

The key to crispy wings from an oven? Ali Slagle advises a quick toss in a mixture of baking powder and salt — with the option of dry-brining, should your schedule allow it. If you’re looking for a vegetarian option, look no further than her recipe for Buffalo cauliflower.

Recipes: Baked Buffalo Wings | Buffalo Cauliflower

12. Vegan ‘Queso’

Skip the bright-orange cheesy dip and try something new: This vegan dip leans on cashews for creaminess and turmeric for vibrancy. Adapted by Tejal Rao from the cookbook “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” this “queso” is topped with a tomatillo salsa and garnished with cilantro and red onion. Of course, you always have the option to go classic queso with Alexa Weibel’s Tex-Mex interpretation.

Recipes: Vegan ‘Queso’ | Queso

13. Coconut Shrimp

Is it an appetizer for four? Is it an entree for two? The beauty of coconut shrimp is that it’s whatever you want it to be. Just don’t skip Margaux Laskey’s spicy-sweet dip made with marmalade, Dijon mustard and Sriracha.

Recipe: Coconut Shrimp

14. Vegetarian Skillet Chili

Melissa Clark has her 30-minute chili recipe committed to memory — it’s that easy. Make it once, and you’ll memorize it, too. If you’re the type to keep canned beans, tomatoes, onion and garlic on hand, you won’t even have to dash out to the store and risk missing kickoff.

Recipe: Vegetarian Skillet Chili

15. Pressure Cooker Hot Honey Ribs

These sticky, spicy, fall-off-the-bone ribs from Sarah DiGregorio come together in a little over an hour thanks to the trusty pressure cooker. You’ll want to stick them under the broiler after glazing to ensure a perfectly caramelized exterior. We’ll take ours with an ice-cold beer.

Recipe: Pressure Cooker Hot Honey Ribs

16. Chile Verde Guacamole

You won’t find lime juice in this guacamole from the northern Mexican state of Sonora. But you won’t miss it either, thanks to the flavorful combination of roasted Anaheim and raw serrano chiles in this recipe by Pati Jinich.

Recipe: Chile Verde Guacamole

17. Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken With Fried Basil

These aromatic bites of fried chicken are popular at Taiwanese night markets and often served in a paper bag with wooden skewers. Sue Li’s recipe is crunchy and flavor-packed — two must-have qualities of a game-day dish.

Recipe: Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken With Fried Basil

18. Spinach Artichoke Dip

Alison Roman’s version of the classic sport-bar dip features four different kinds of dairy, but the inclusion of spinach means you can totally count it as your vegetable for the day.

Recipe: Spinach Artichoke Dip

19. Jerk Chicken Meatballs With Barbecue-Pineapple Glaze

Millie Peartree’s sweet and savory meatballs are great over rice, but you could serve them on a platter with toothpicks, or even tuck them into a soft roll for a jerk chicken meatball grinder.

Recipe: Jerk Chicken Meatballs With Barbecue-Pineapple Glaze

20. Pressure Cooker Chipotle-Honey Chicken Tacos

Sarah DiGregorio’s recipe for smoky chicken and black bean tacos makes expert use of canned chipotles in adobo and a bit of honey in record time. Adorn them however you’d like, but be sure to include pickled red onion and avocado. You can also make them in the slow cooker.

Recipe: Pressure Cooker Chipotle-Honey Chicken Tacos

21. Mozzarella in Carrozza

“Is this a mozzarella stick in sandwich form?” The answer is yes. A quintessential bar snack, the mozzarella stick is cheesy, gooey excess — and so is this Italian sandwich counterpart by Ali Slagle. Skip fresh mozzarella for the low-moisture stuff, and use panko bread crumbs if you can for extra crunch.

Recipe: Mozzarella in Carrozza

22. Cheesy Pan Pizza

You could just make pizza, of course. Break out the cast-iron skillet for this recipe from the King Arthur Baking Company test kitchen, adapted by Tejal Rao. Contact with the sides of the skillet will get the edges of the pie brown and crackling. Make sure to start the dough earlier in the weekend so that it has ample time to ferment (12 hours at minimum).

Recipe: Cheesy Pan Pizza

Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.