Super Bowl

The original and superior version of nachos with cheese has the smoky spiciness of roasted chile and chorizo. While it can be served with tortilla chips, it is best scooped and wrapped into warm corn or flour tortillas. This makes a great simple lunch served with salad or soup.

I had the best Japanese-style chicken wings at the Gonpachi Restaurant in Tokyo. They arrived at the table crackling on a little hibachi grill. Salty, sweet, and aromatic, they were great with chilled sake. To me, this is perfect contemporary Japanese cooking.

Fried peanuts will amaze your guests with their crunch and fresh, distinctive flavor. Add different kinds of nuts if you like, as long as they are “raw” to begin with (the industrial shelling process uses enough heat to cook the nuts, at least a little bit). The best raw peanuts are usually found in the fall (peanuts are an exception; the best season for other nuts is spring), when they are fresh and tender. Like any nuts, these are great with drinks, especially beer.

GINA It wouldn’t be my party without some piggies, and these are the good old-fashioned finger-food kind. Our twist is to serve them with barbecue sauce. Watch your guests come runnin’—they’ll be shamelessly stuffin’ ’em down!

GINA I can hear “It’s a Man’s World” by James Brown playing whenever I make this chili. But beer, bacon, and brisket are three of my favorite “b”s, too. So don’t be scared, ladies—this delicious chili will please the whole family, not just your quarterbacks. As with most stews and chilis, this is best made the night before, and reheated right before the big game starts!

This is a great mix of pretzel sticks, smoked almonds, and sesame sticks. Melting the butter and adding it to the mix helps the savory-sweet-spicy seasonings stick together. (And that little hint of cayenne will keep them awake!) Bag these up so that they can be taken to class for a power snack.

Since Labor Day is a holiday when most are off work, people are always stopping by the Neely house, and we’ve got to have something at the ready for our guests to munch on. This seven-layer dip is absolutely beautiful as well as flavorful, a great item to set up to get the party started!

Smoky bacon wrapped around shrimp spiced with Neely’s barbecue rub and garlic creates a sensuous dance of flavors on your tongue. But the real romance of the dish is that you can feed your partner these bite-sized delights.

PAT These young graduates don’t want a sit-down meal at their celebration. They want fun foods that they can eat (and spill all over your carpet!) while walking around and chatting with each other. Nachos fit the bill, and this Neely’s Bar-B-Que version has been a signature dish in our restaurants for over 20 years. Smoked brisket, pulled pork, or store-bought rotisserie chicken—they all work just fine. And for you non–meat eaters, grilled vegetables work as well!

GINA My attraction to mangoes was confirmed on a trip Pat and I took to Mexico. The velvety fruit tastes like an exotic mix of pineapples and peaches, and the flavor just explodes in your mouth. In creating this salsa, I stuck with Mexican tradition and added fresh cilantro, which you can chop or tear apart. Cilantro also offers a health benefit by soothing the digestive system. So, little do the guys know, I’m taking care of their stomachs as well as their appetite! (Ladies, y’all can thank me later.) Mind you, I was a little skeptical about whether they’d go for it, so I deep-fried the tortilla chips, so they’d have something familiar to dip.

PAT In our house there’s always some barbecue going on (even if we’re not grilling, we’re adding the spice). These chips are dusted with paprika, garlic, sugar, and salt, and once they’re out of the fryer, they quickly disappear (so make two batches!).

Spenser loves those little fried-chicken sandwiches from fast-food places, so we thought we just had to take a stab at our own down-home remix. You would not believe how many of these bad boys folks can put away! The sweet-pickle mayo gives just the right tang to the crunchy and tender fried chicken. We like these sandwiches on soft dinner rolls, but you can also make mini-biscuits if you’re really feeling buttery bad.

GINA Pat says no Super Bowl should ever be viewed without a beer, but I’m the queen of cocktails, and who needs regular beer when you can have a Michelada cocktail? When we filmed the show Road Tasted with the Neelys, we discovered this spicy beer in Santa Fe, where it is generally served during Fiesta. It has such a unique flavor, and sometimes it’s nice to mix it up and serve the totally unexpected . . . but you definitely need to be ready for the spice. If you want to add a little something special, you can rim your glasses with lime, put salt and chile powder on a separate plate, and dip the rims of the glasses in it—just to give the cocktail a little something extra! Go ahead—drink it, and score a touchdown!

GINA For some reason, there are always potatoes in the pantry. So pull them out and make some potato skins! Grilling them gives them a nice spin, and since we are the first family of barbecue, these skins are complemented by barbecue sauce, pulled pork, and bacon. And you guys all know how I feel about the pig . . . so I like to call these the “double pig.” They also make a nice pick-me-up when you’re entertaining, so, to make them more like appetizers, you can slice them in quarters, arrange on a platter, and sprinkle with green onions. Trust me, these will be eaten so fast they’ll be history. PAT That’s right, pig layered on pig, y’all! Having potato skins, and adding two types of pork—bacon and pulled pork—truly puts a guy (that’s me, Pat!) in hog heaven. For you non–pig lovers (surely only a few of you), you can always substitute turkey bacon, chicken, or even beef brisket for the bacon and pulled pork.