Carb-Controlled Game Day Snacks
If you’re following a carbohydrate-controlled diet, you don’t have to miss out on all of the fun that comes with snacking while watching your favorite college or professional football (or other sports!) teams play. Whether you are tailgating in the stadium parking lot or watching on television from home, you can enjoy many traditional sports-watching food and beverage items without blowing your diet.
Chicken Wings
There are plenty of great ways to prepare chicken wings that are carbohydrate-free or that have very low carb counts. With chicken wings, of course, the carbs, come from the sauces and seasonings that you use, so choose wisely. My favorite wing seasonings include Moore’s Buffalo Wing Sauce (1 gram of carbohydrate per serving), Ollie’s “World Famous) Barbecue Sauce (2 grams of carbs per serving).
Simply heat the oven to 375 degrees, cover cookie sheets with two layers of aluminum foil and coat a section of chicken wing drumettes with your favorite herbs and/or sauces. I pour the sauce in a bowl, drop in a few wings, toss to coat, remove and place on cookie sheets, repeating until all of the wings are covered with flavor. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour.
Dip and Dipper Options
Dipper Ideas
There are plenty of great low-carb dip recipes. The real challenge with enjoying dips on a carb-controlled diet lies with finding something crunchy to eat with them. I like Wasa Sesame Thin & Crispy flatbread. Two crackers, which are quite large, have 11 grams of carbohydrate (1 of which is fiber).
I also like to cut Low Carb Pita from Toyfan Bakeries into quarters to use with dip. (My local grocery store doesn’t carry this item; I order it from netrition.com). Each pita has 16 grams of carbohydrate, nine of which are fiber, for a net carb count of 7 carbs for a full-size pocket pita.
You can, of course, also use fresh veggies like celery sticks, broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, cucumber slices or zucchini sticks.
Dip Ideas
It’s easy to make low carb dip. A few of my favorite simple recipes are:
Salmon Dip: Place one softened block of full-fat cream cheese into a bowl. Drain one five ounce can of salmon. Add the salmon to the cream cheese. Add approximately two tablespoons of no-sugar added ketchup. Mix until thoroughly combined and there are no lumps in the cream cheese. Chill for a few hours before serving.
Spinach Dip: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thaw two 10-ounce boxes of chopped spinach. Drain. Place in a square baking dish. Add 16-ounces ounces of full-fat sour cream, 4 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese and a pinch of nutmeg. Stir until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Bake 30 minutes. Sprinkle with additional shredded cheddar as soon as the dip is removed from the oven. For variation, you can also stir in chopped, drained artichoke hearts and/or crawfish tails prior to baking or use 8 ounces of sour cream and 8 ounces of cream cheese instead of just sour cream.
Carbohydrate Controlled Adult Beverages
Bloody Mary Cocktails
Mix Vodka with Zing Zang Bloody Mary mix; serve with a celery stick. This particular brand of Bloody Mary mix has only four grams of carbohydrate per serving. It’s so spicy and tasty you won’t need to add anything but your favorite brand of vodka and a celery stick.
Sweet Cocktails
There are a few low-carb diet friendly options for enjoying sweet cocktails. For example, Spice Exchange and Baja Bob brand sugar-free cocktail mixes provide a way to enjoy sweet cocktails on your low carb diet. The flavors I have used include Appletini, Mango Margarita, Margarita, Pina Colada and more. are sweetened with Splenda and contain zero or very few carbs and calories per serving. I’ve found Spice Exchange mixes in the gourmet foods section of TJ Maxx and have ordered Baja Bob mixes online.
Beer
Since there there are a few brands of relatively low carb beer on the market, you can certainly enjoy a few cans or bottles of beer while watching your favorite sporting events without breaking your diet. MGD 64 and Michelob Ultra are among the lowest carbohydrate count beers on the market.
What Are Your Favorite Carb-Controlled Snacks?
These are only a few of the great carbohydrate-controlled snack ideas you can enjoy while watching your favorite sporting events. Do you have more favorite low-carb snack ideas that you'd like to share? Please include your suggestions in the comments section below.
