We Turned Your Favorite Game Day Snacks into Pizzas

One of the (many) great things about pizza is that it really can be used as a blank slate for nearly anything. One night, you can opt for all the traditional toppings (pepperoni, garlic, spinach, sausage, etc!). The next, you can get creative and add rosemary-potatoes, or baked ziti, or bbq chicken. And the following night, you can crack an egg on top. You get the point: Pizza is versatile!

That said, and with the knowledge that the Super Bowl is one of the busiest nights of the year for most pizzerias, we recently dedicated some Test Kitchen time to all things pizza. We developed three all-star recipes for Game Day-worthy pizzas that you can make at home. Bonus: Each one highlights a different game day snack. Make one (or all three) and you’re guaranteed to be voted MVP of the night.

2. Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Buffalo sure are delicious. They’re also incredibly hard to eat while also balancing a beer bottle and laughing at some very expensive commercials. That’s where this Buffalo Chicken Pizza comes in. Instead of pizza sauce, melt hot sauce (Frank’s RedHot is preferred) with butter and spread it all over the dough. Then, toss shredded cooked chicken with garlic powder, salt and pepper before sprinkling it on the pizza and covering it with mozzarella cheese.

To finish it off, we suggest baking this spicy pie in the new Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo, which acts like a wood-fired oven and churns out Neapolitan-style pizza in about two minutes. If you don’t have a pizzaiolo, you can use a regular oven: preheat a pizza stone at 500°F (260°C), then bake the pizza for about eight minutes.

1. Nacho Pizza

When you think about it, pizza sauce and salsa aren’t all that different. They’re both tomato based, at least! So it makes sense that this nacho pizza (with pizza sauce) would come together nicely. Instead of tortilla chips, you’ll use pizza dough—either make some from scratch or steal this tip that we learned from Giada De Laurentiis and ask your local pizzeria if you can buy a ball of their dough. Roll out the dough and put it on a pizza steel (we’re partial to this one from Emile Henry) and start layering the toppings. Spread the salsa, er, we mean sauce, and top with seasoned ground beef, diced tomato pieces, sliced green chiles, and shredded Mexican cheese.

Bake your pizza for about eight to 10 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Then, you can add green onions, jalapeños, a dollop of sour cream, and some homemade pickled onions. Slice the pizza up and there will be no soggy, loner cheese-covered chip that ends up going to waste.

3. Meatball Pizzas

Meatballs are equally as hard to eat during a party. You put one one a toothpick only to have half of it fall on the floor the same time you realize that the half that’s in your mouth is way too hot, temperature wise. Slice those meatballs in half and put them on a pizza and you have a way more manageable eating experience.

This recipe calls for a homemade pizza dough— it looks involved, but we promise it’s not too difficult. And of course, you can always do that pizzeria trick if you want to save some time.