Outdoor Tailgating Food Ideas

You can partially cook nearly any food and finish it on the grill to add smokiness.

Outdoor tailgating is commonly associated with foods that are easy to eat and simple to make, such as chicken wings, dips and grilled items. You can put a unique twist on your tailgating party by applying your creativity and building upon the classics and finishing them on the grill for a smoky element. Update the traditional chicken, pork and beef dishes to fit your tailgating theme, the guests or style of cooking you prefer, and put a new twist on your outdoor tailgating party.

Pork

Pork has an ideal balance of fat and flavor that makes it suited to numerous settings, particularly outdoor tailgating. Pork holds up well to grilling as a result of its fat content. For instance, pork satay — flattened slices of pork loin skewered and grilled — takes on numerous flavor combinations with success, including your choice of spice rubs and sauces. It has applications as a condiment, as in Swiss Gruyere and grilled bacon dip, and as a component of other preparations, such as a substitution for beef in chili — a tailgating prerequisite for most. Other uses for pork include filling for foods such as empanadas and grilled kebab.

Beef

Incorporate ground beef into pierogies, which are small pockets of filling wrapped in dough, or empanadas, a fried version of the same concept. These items work well because guests can eat them with one hand, are inexpensive to make and take on a variety of fillings, allowing the cook to adapt them to fit any palate. Additional techniques and uses for beef include skewered and grilled with vegetables, Tillamook cheddar and beef fondue, Roquefort-stuffed hamburgers and classic grill-top smoked brisket.

Chicken

Wings are associated with tailgating for several reasons — they are simple to make, easy to eat and take on many flavors with success. Put an Asian spin on them by tossing them in a sauce made of finely minced Thai chili peppers, freshly grated ginger, minced scallions, garlic, honey and chicken stock after grilling. Or build upon traditional buffalo wing sauce. Combine beurre noisette — butter cooked on low until it develops a nutty aroma — with brown sugar, cayenne pepper sauce and seasonings of choice. Ingredients that accompany this luxury form of wing sauce include green garlic, fried shallots and minced rosemary. You can also skewer and grill diced chicken breasts with vegetables, use it a substitute for beef in chili or use it as a taco or flauta filling.

Other

Other foods that fit into a tailgating session include those from the cold category, such as potato salad and cannelloni bean dip. Develop a new take on potato salad by boiling the potatoes and finishing them on a grill grid to finish. Toss them with fresh herbs while hot and add your own sauce — use a vinegar-based sauce for German-style, or, after they cool, coat them with a sauce of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, fried bacon and minced scallions. Seafood, although delicate, handles outdoor cooking well when skewered, cooked on a grill grid or enclosed in a grill basket. Vegetarian options include marinated, skewered and grilled vegetables. You also can make vegetable stir-fry by placing your wok on the grill.