“Instead of the Super Bowl, regular, non-athletic Americans around the country compete in the Dip Bowl, a competition to see which dips are the best for snacking on while watching grown men tackle each other on the world stage.”
If the snacks on Super Bowl Sunday get you more excited than the big game playing in the background, it’s time to host: The Dip Bowl.
The Dip Bowl is a potluck party where guests compete to be crowned the winner of the best dip. As the host, all you need to do is provide dipping companions and your own dip if you want to compete. It’s a good way to get a big group of friends together over food without needing an extra large dinner table to seat everyone.
The Dips
For The Dip Bowl, you need to think beyond the traditional dip. Everyone loves spinach artichoke or seven-layer dip, but there are so many other dips you can make. Anything that can be scooped with a chip, cracker, or cookie can be a dip. Salsa? It’s a dip. Hummus? A dip. Buttercream icing? Make it a dip.
Here are the dips our guests brought to The Dip Bowl for inspiration:
- Cajun Shrimp Dip
- Dunkaroo Dip (it’s sweet!)
- Buffalo Chicken Dip
- Caramelized French Onion Dip
- Lemon Whipped Feta
- Hummus
- Elote Street Corn Dip
- Tuna Spread
- Italian Seasoned Olive Oil
- Sizzled Scallion Dip
Dips are relatively simple to make. You blend, mash, mix, or bake ingredients together and serve them with a dipper. It’s an approachable potluck request for your friends who otherwise might set off a fire in the kitchen. If a guest doesn’t want to bring a dip, but still wants to taste and attend, ask them to bring dippers. Not everyone needs to bring a dip. At our dip party, we had 20 people and couples teamed up to create one dip. More than 10 dips would ovewhelm the judges and your tastebuds (but is that really a bad thing?).
Dippers
Before your guests arrive, set out and arrange all your dippers. You’ll want to buy a mix of crackers and chips but also include healthier fresh options like carrots and celery. I recommend buying a bag of each chip or cracker, people will eat less of each dipper than you’d expect since there is so much variety.
Here is a list of savory dippers:
- Tortilla chips
- Pita chips
- Ruffles or a similar ridged potato
- Crackers
- Celery
- Baby carrots
- Endives
- Crostini
- Toasted ciabatta
You can also set out graham crackers or animal crackers for any sweet dips that your guests may bring. Grazing on dips all night is surprisingly filling so don’t worry about cooking or ordering more food.
Dipper Tip: Make your own crostinis by cutting up a French baguette, seasoning the crostinis with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasting them in the oven at 400 for about 10 minutes.
Crowning The Dip Bowl Champion
There can only be one champion of The Dip Bowl. Each guest will be able to cast their vote for their favorite dip. We used a ranking system where everyone had the chance to rank each dip from their favorite to least favorite (1-10). You can use Google Forms or do it the old-fashioned way by having people cast their handwritten votes into bowls.
To accurately identify and judge the dips, make sure every dip is labeled with its correct name. We put out place cards for our guests to write the names of their dips.
We used Google Forms so everyone could cast their vote from their phone. To create a Google Form with a ranking system, create a multiple-choice grid. On the bottom left of the question widget, there will be three dots. Click it and select “Limit to one response per column.” In the rows, write 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., and in the column section write out all the names of the dips.
Whether you did it old school or with Google form, you’ll need to allocate a score to each ranking and dip. For example, if a dip received a ranking of 1st place, it will be given 10 points (the highest) but if it was ranked 4th by someone else, the dip will be given 6 points for that ranking. You need to add together all the points of each ranking to determine a final score. The dip with the highest score will be crowned the winner. You can use ChatGPT to help with the math.
We announced the winners after all the votes were in and continued the party for people to mingle and enjoy their favorite dips.
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