Game Day Food Ideas + Cooking Temperature Tips

Author: Scott Owen

It’s the season of game time parties and finger foods, so we’ve compiled a list of winning food ideas for your game day parties. These mouth-watering recipes include pulled pork nachos, stuffed hamburgers, and competition style pork ribs. As always, we’ve added the best temperature tips to help you achieve game day greatness with your party guests.

Competition-Style BBQ Spare Ribs

Competition-Style BBQ Ribs are a fan favorite! We used pork spare ribs which are packed with flavor and outlined a couple of essential temperature targets to bring you an easy-to-follow process. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that these ribs are cooked in butter, honey, and brown sugar.

The Chicken Lollipop: A Thermal How-To Guide

Can you say finger foods? These chicken lollipops have juicy dark meat and a lacquered zesty exterior. There are a few unique challenges involved with this dish, but a clear focus on temperature monitoring make it an accomplishable and delicious treat. These are perfect for a game day party, but make sure you get one, they’re sure to go fast.

How to Cook a Stuffed Burger

Treat your party guests with this stuffed burger! The fillings for a stuffed burger can be as simple as onions and cheddar cheese, or as sophisticated as feta cheese and roasted red peppers. No matter what you choose to fill your burgers with grab your Thermapen^® Mk4 and get ready to eat these juicy and flavor-packed burgers.

Smoked Pulled Pork: Game Day Loaded Nachos! + Video

Nachos are a finger food staple! Combine the tremendously cheesy goodness of nachos and the magic of low and slow smoked pulled pork, and you have your party’s MVP. A lot is going on with this dish, so check in here for the target temperatures you should be aiming for. Added Bonus: Check out this post on The Science of Melting Cheese to up your cheese game.

Thermal Tips: Chicken Wings for the Big Game

For the wing fans, check out these thermal tips to chicken wings. We cover two methods. First the traditional deep-fried then tossed with buffalo sauce and second, Jamaican Jerk marinated then grilled.

Smoked Meatloaf for the Tailgate!

Meatloaf is often overlooked as viable party food, but the beautiful thing about meatloaf is that it leaves a lot of creativity up to the cook. Season, stuff, bacon wrap all to your desire. With this meatloaf, we went with a few simple seasonings and flavorful glaze, with a more significant focus on a proper cooking method. So no matter how you decide to season your meatloaf you can follow these easy steps turning meatloaf into a party win.

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Comments

Julie says

January 30, 2018 at 8:14 pm

I cooked a whole chicken and measured the temp in the centre of the breast (not against a bone) and it measured 74 degrees C. However the meat was bloody and slightly pink on the thigh and legs. Would this have been unsafe to eat?
- Martin says
  
  January 30, 2018 at 9:27 pm
  
  Julie,
  
  Surprisingly, yes, it is safe to eat! This bloody appearance is caused by marrow leaking out of the bones and into the meat, leaving a bloody-looking mess behind. Also, the pigment in the dark meat sometimes doesn’t quite change color all the way to dark, leaving a pink tinge. You can read more about it in our post about pink, bloody chicken. As long as your temperature was in the right place, the color doesn’t matter.
  I hope this helps, and that you have happy cooking!