If there’s one time-honored American tradition that rivals a national holiday, it’s the Super Bowl. This contest that pits the two best National Football League (NFL) teams against each other draws an impressive number of viewers year after year. According to the data experts at Nielsen, the 2017 match-up between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons drew some 111.3 million viewers.
Since we’ve already established that the big game is essentially a holiday for even the fair-weather football fans among us, it also means plenty of houseguests for those who host game-day parties. Even the NFL playoff games – where a loss means your favorite team is out of the running after months of exciting football – draws casual sports fan and keeps die-hard followers glued to their TV sets throughout the month of January. With all this in-house activity, it’s natural that many people end up hosting a huge viewing parties.
For hosts who are faced with crafting a menu, going shopping, cooking, and serving everything to guests, the big game requires almost as much training and preparation as it does for those who’ll be doing battle on the gridiron. (Maybe not, but it seems that way!) Unfortunately, many Super Bowl traditions involve unhealthy foods . But in today’s health-conscious times, we have advice on healthier recipes that you’ll be proud of and dishes that your guests will love.
One of the best ways to simplify things while still creating popular game-day snacks by using an air fryer. These appliances, which essentially replace the unhealthy deep fryer, benefit from the rapid circulation of super-heated air in all directions. Time magazine once estimated that the average American will consume as much as 2,400 calories during the big game. While calories alone can’t be used to determine an unhealthy diet, an excess of oil certainly can. With an air fryer like the Power Air Fryer XL, food isn’t cooked in a bath of artery-clogging oil. This way, at-home chefs can still prepare the foods they have been making for years; they will just be putting a healthier spin on it.
One big game favorite that gets scarfed down year after year are bacon-wrapped tater tots. Traditionally, this would be cooked by frying the bacon in a pan and cooking the tater tots in a deep fryer. Prepared this way, the bacon sits in its own grease as it cooks and the deep fryer oil absorbs into the tater tots. With an air fryer, however, you can pre-wrap the tater tots with raw bacon and allow the whole thing to simultaneously cook inside the air fryer’s basket. Best of all, this appliance shaves the preparation time down to mere minutes. The slotted fry basket also allows for grease that’s inherently part of both ingredients to drip and drop off the food as it cooks.
Another perennial big game staple are hot wings. Just how popular are these finger food favorites? In a recent Forbes magazine article, industry experts estimated that Americans will consume 1.33 billion wings during Super Bowl Sunday. If you’ve got guests coming over who expect to have wings — but are sticking to that recent new year’s resolution to eat healthier — an air fryer can again help get the job done. In a little more than half-an-hour, you can have wings prepared sans deep fryer grease. Note: if you have the new Power Air Fryer Oven, these recipes can be made using the oven instead of the Air Fryer, too.
No matter the outcome of the game, you and guests are bound to win with improved health and satisfied appetites