How to Throw a Super Easy Superbowl Party

A TV in the background with a football game on, and soda and chips in the foreground.

A Super Bowl party can be one of the easiest parties to throw. The entertainment is already provided, and the food and drinks can be as easy as asking guests to bring something to contribute. With our ideas for cooking a main dish and crafting some easy decorations to set the mood, you're well on your way to a good time.

Invitations

Before you can have a party, you have to invite your favorite people. If you are into social media, you could do the invites via the event planner within your social media account or send out invites via email. If the people you're inviting don't often check their social media or email accounts, invite them the old fashioned way with mailed invites or simply give them a call.

The catch here when planning a Super Bowl party is that your invites will probably go out before you know what teams are going to be playing. Therefore, in the invite be sure to tell everyone that once the teams are set in stone, they should pick sides and wear the colors of their chosen team. After all, what fun is a football game if no one knows who they are rooting for? It brings some life to the party.

Decorations

Homemade decorations are the least expensive, and most fun for us DIYers. If you're a crafter, you probably already have all the items you'll need to make decorations.

Use brown craft paper to cover your table, and white duct tape to make yard lines and end zones. (I wouldn’t paint them on as the paint might chip and get into your party food.) You could also use chalkboard contact paper and draw on your football field that way.

Add a little football-themed décor to the table by recycling some well-rinsed out food cans. Wrap brown paper around the can and tape or paint on white cross hatches (football laces) to make them look like footballs. Make three, so you can have one for forks, one for spoons, and one for knives.

To hold your napkins, use a bigger can wrapped in black and white striped paper. Hang a small sign on it that says “penalty flags,” and fill with yellow napkins.

For a centerpiece, glue Pringles chip cans together to make a goal post (you will need four cans, so start eating!). Once the glue is dry, spray paint them yellow. If you're ambitious, make one for each end of the table.

Food

There are a couple ways to keep food simple. My favorite way is to make it a pot luck and ask everyone to bring a dish. As the host you can provide the main dish (such as burgers, lasagna, or pizza) and everyone else can make complimentary dishes.

If you're not comfortable with that idea, have the food selection be hors d’oeuvres and finger foods. It may be a little more work to make, but it is a lot easier for people to eat, and it makes for a lot more great choices. If you want to stick to a football theme with food, how about a plate of deviled eggs? (They're naturally in the shape of a football.) Use chives to make the laces and keep the theme going. Make a cheese and cracker tray in the shape of a football. Use crackers around the edge. The next inner layer should be cheese. On the inside, lay thin-cut sliced salami and then use mozzarella strips to make the laces of your football platter.

If hors d’oeuvres aren’t your thing and want to make it even simpler, just throw a bunch of hot dogs in a slow cooker. Provide buns, chips, and pickles and you're done.

A nacho bar is always fun. Place the cheese in a slow cooker and provide plates and chips. Gather bowls of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, olives, sour cream, and salsa. Everyone can serve themselves!

For dessert, make chocolate cupcakes and pipe on white frosting to make them look like footballs.

Drinks

This is the simplest category…BYOB! Just have some coolers ready for all the cans and bottles. One of my favorite tricks is to cut the empty box of whatever you are putting into the cooler and tape it to the top of the cooler. That way your guests will know what is in each cooler before opening them up.

Other Things to Think About

Make sure to get heavy-duty paper plates. You don’t want anything leaking through onto your guests' laps or your carpet.

To make throwing trash away easy, have two trash cans. Mark them clearly: one for trash and one for recyclables. Place several opened trash bags in each so that you can empty quickly, and the next bag will already be in place.