Healthy Super Bowl Snacks

We all love snacking when watching the biggest football game of the year, but none of us enjoy the bloat and weight gain the next day. Vv Magazine’s Nicki Laborie offers up some recipes she makes at home that you can include in your healthy Super Bowl snacks menu!

It’s an unfortunate fact that Super Bowl XLIX is exactly one month after the two weeks of gluttony otherwise known as “the holidays.” Most of us will have dieted and eaten better through January to lose that “happy” weight, so why ruin it all with a football game that causes you to gain a couple of those pounds back? We at Vv prefer to avoid throwing all that hard work out the window. Instead, I have compiled some delicious snacks that won’t pack on the pounds while still satisfying your Super Bowl XLIX cravings.

Tuna & Avocado Ceviche with Corn Chips
While guacamole is tasty and actually quite healthy, it packs the good fats and those can add up when you’re glued to the TV stressed about who will win the game. It is also generally served with store bought corn chips that are full of fat. Here is an awesome recipe that gives you a guacamole feeling, but is lighter and higher in protein. I suggest serving it with organic corn chips or, even better, on a spoon.

Ingredients:
1lb sushi grade tuna, diced
1 medium avocado, diced
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small mango, diced
2 scallions, chopped
1-2 limes, juiced
4 fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

Mix it all up and let sit in fridge for at least one hour, but no more than six hours. Serve in cups with spoons or with organic corn chips.

Makes 2-3 cups of ceviche.

Green Olive Tapenade with Gluten Free Crackers
This recipe is so easy and full of healthy fats. Serve with Mary’s organic crackers and your guests will all be begging you for the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup high quality pitted green olives
1 cup blanched almonds
2 tbsp capers
½ clove garlic
¼ cup of white wine
¼ cup of olive oil

Add all ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it’s smooth. You may need to add olive oil to smooth it out. Serve on crackers.

Makes 2 cups of tapenade.

Smoked Salmon Wraps
This is an easy go-to hors d’oeuvre that always impresses, but is so easy it’s funny when people ask me for the recipe. The herbs in this recipe can easily be switched up to please anyone. I make it with dill but you can use cilantro or anything else you like. The final bite looks great and tastes even better.

Ingredients:
1 pack of fresh smoked salmon (you can use frozen smoked salmon too but fresh packs more punch)
½ container of whipped cream cheese, herb flavour (again, this can be changed to whatever suits your tastebuds)
4 large whole wheat tortillas
Salmon caviar eggs
Fresh dill

Lay out one tortilla on your workspace. Spread a very light layer of cream cheese over the tortilla, add pieces of salmon across the centerline of the tortilla, and then follow with dill. Starting at one end, roll the tortilla tightly. Wrap with plastic wrap and put in fridge for an hour or more.

Once ready to serve, remove the plastic wrap and cut the roll into 1-inch pieces. Top each piece with ½ teaspoon of salmon caviar.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Cashew Mayo
Meghan Telpner, one of my favourite Toronto-based nutritionists, featured this recipe on her web site and we love it. This recipe teaches us how to make crispy sweet potato fries that I promise your guests would never know weren’t fried.

Ingredients:
3-4 medium sized sweet potatoes, scrubbed
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp arrowroot starch
2 tsp sea salt
Pinch of cayenne
1 cup raw cashews
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp cider vinegar
¼ cup water
½ tsp sea salt

Preheat your oven to 450F. Slice sweet potatoes into shoestring fry size (or as close as your knife skills permit). Layer into a bowl a heaping handful at a time, sprinkling each layer with arrowroot starch and some olive oil. Once all are in the mixing bowl, toss together until oil and starch are evenly mixed. Lay out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet in a single layer and bake until crispy brown — this usually takes about 45 minutes. If you have a convection oven, you may want to bake for 35 minutes and then check to ensure you aren’t burning your fries!

For Cashew Mayo:
Place all ingredients into a food processor or high speed blender, and mix on high until they are creamy smooth. You may need to scrape down the sides with a spatula. Add additional water as needed for desired consistency.

Makes 4 servings.

Peppery Maple Salmon Skewers
I guarantee this will be the party favourite — always is at my house! A combination of sweet, salty, and spicy, it’s the perfect bite-size protein to satisfy even the most junk food loving of peeps.

Ingredients:
2lbs salmon filets, skin removed
1 cup maple syrup, preferably local or organic
½ cup low sodium soy sauce
Fresh cracked pepper
20 wooden skewers, soaked in water for 1/2hr

Cut the salmon into 20 rectangular pieces as close in size as possible (think 1 inch by 3 inches). Set aside. Combine the maple syrup with the soy sauce in a large Ziploc bag. Add the salmon, close it tightly, and ensure the marinade gets into each piece. Put it in the fridge for anywhere from six to 24 hours (the longer the better).

Preheat oven to 500F. Remove the salmon from the Ziploc and skewer each piece. Place on the skewers on an oiled cookie sheet and coat the top of the salmon with cracked pepper – the amount is up to how spicy you want it to be. Bake in the oven for seven to 10 minutes, remove, and enjoy melt-in-your-mouth salmon bites.

Makes 20 bites.

Asian Pulled Chicken Rolls
We included these in an earlier article and many of our readers have since made them and loved them! So, we are featuring them again because really, it’s a great Super Bowl snack that will have the boys wanting more without even knowing they’re eating light. Gotta love that!

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
3 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 pack of cherry tomatoes
1 red onion
4 bay leaves
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 head garlic crushed
Water as needed
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup Ponzu sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp rice vinegar
1 scallion, chopped

Put the first nine ingredients into a slow cooker or Dutch oven, and ensure the liquid covers the meat and tomatoes. In the oven, let it cook at 250 degrees Celsius for five hours or in a slow cooker (set temperature at low for five hours).

Remove and pull the meat apart in a separate bowl. Remove the bay leaves and thyme from the liquid. Add the liquid, tomatoes, onions, and garlic to the chicken and mix. If you need to add water, add slowly so as to not drench the chicken.

Make the dipping sauce by combining the ponzu sauce, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and chopped scallions.

The next part is up to you. We suggest using cabbage or Boston lettuce leaves, adding chicken, green onion, radish, mango, cilantro, mint, and then roll.

At the end of the day, these can also be made with mini burger buns and will still stay very healthy. Removing the BBQ sauce from any pulled meat recipe cuts the sugar content, which is what ends up being bad for you and your diet. These can be enjoyed in abundance without any guilt!

Do you have any healthy Super Bowl snacks that we should know about? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @ViewtheVibe.