Beyond Football

We are deep in tailgate season and the big question is: What’s on the menu? Whether you are hosting outside of a stadium or snacking in the living room, party food is part of the fun. Where to begin? We asked a few seasoned sports fans for their tailgating best.

Hook ’Em: Landry Family UT Tailgates

As the mom of a just-graduated member of the University of Texas Pom Squad and a son who played baseball for A&M and is now a redshirt freshman first-baseman at Tulane, Christi Landry knows a few things about college football tailgates. But the A&M graduate and retired attorney hasn’t always been a tailgating pro.

“We never dreamed we’d do it,” Christi says of herself and her husband Andy, also an attorney. “But then our daughter was at UT and a Pom, and we totally fell in love with it.”

Snacks and UT spirit at the Landry tailgate.

Now the Landrys host an annual UT tailgate – they choose the game weekend a year in advance – but when their daughter started school, they also started from scratch. “We ordered pop-up bars from Amazon, and we went to a restaurant we liked in Austin and asked if anyone was interested in bartending,” Christi says. “And years ago, my husband and I were watching Shark Tank, and we saw these two brothers who started a concept servicing tailgates. When Kirby Jane started school, we Googled, and the Tailgate Guys [now RevelXP] had become a big thing on every college campus.

“It’s genius. They set up the tent, TV, fans, and they give you coolers of ice. Beforehand they’ll send us pictures of potential spots and ask us what looks best to us.”

Over the years, the Landrys have learned what works and what doesn’t. Barbecue is too messy: “You need plates and all the utensils. When we did that, we wound up giving it all to my daughter’s boyfriend’s fraternity, and they were happy to take it off our hands!” So they’ve settled on Taco Cabana breakfast tacos and pizza taken care of by RevelXP. Andy supplies his super-popular grilled jalapeños stuffed with sausage and cheese, wrapped in bacon, and doused in teriyaki sauce. Christi fills in with cheese and crackers, dips, and homemade tamales she found through a friend of a friend in Austin. 

Christi Landry loves her Longhorn tailgate "bling," and has the cups – and straws and swizzle sticks – to show for it.

She also makes sure everything is on theme, with custom Styrofoam cups, straws, napkins, and koozies. “I love to decorate silly stuff,” she says. “A couple of years ago a friend was coming, and I told her the general vicinity of our tent. She saw shiny and glitter from 10 blocks away and knew where we were.”

Christi says an LSU tailgate she went to years ago made an impact: “They had a chandelier. One of these years I’m going to figure that out.” For now, she has boxes of burnt orange and white swag and, even though her UT daughter graduated, she plans to keep the fun going. “I can’t just let all that stuff sit there!” 

Andy Landry’s stuffed jalapeños are always gone as fast as he can make them at their UT tailgate parties.

Andy Landry’s Tailgate Stuffed Jalapeños

Christi says, “He can’t make them fast enough!”

1 pound mild Italian sausage
1 pound shredded sharp cheddar cheese
20 medium-sized jalapeños
2 red onions, sliced
10 strips honey bacon, cut in half so that you have 20 shorter strips
Teriyaki sauce

In a medium bowl, mix together the sausage and cheese. Hollow out the jalapeños, wearing gloves while scooping out the seeds. Stuff the sausage-cheese mixture into the peppers. Place a slice of onion over each of the filled peppers. Wrap the peppers with a strip of bacon and secure with a thick toothpick. Grill over a hot fire. Glaze the peppers with teriyaki sauce for 1 minute before pulling them off the fire.

Carolyn Sunseri is famous for her “breakfast in a cup” Bloody Marys at their Texans tailgates.

Texans Tailgating: Bloody Marys and More

Over 14 years of Houston Texans tailgates, Carolyn Sunseri and her Texas First Bank tailgating crew – most of whom are family – have become their own professional set-up team. There’s a bank RV, outfitted with shelves and bins for all the tailgating supplies – a fold-up grill, pop-up tents, chairs, tables, bar-highs, paper products – plus air conditioning and TV. Everyone has an assignment, and Carolyn’s is the bar.

“I usually have a line by the time I set up the bar at the tailgate,” says Carolyn, who is Vice President of Administrative Services for Texan Title Holdings. That’s mostly because she is famous for her over-the-top Bloody Marys, a.k.a. “Breakfast in a Glass.”

Skewers hold the “breakfast” part of the Bloody Marys - pickled okra, mozzarella, pepperoni, peppers, and more.

“They’ve kind of evolved over the years,” Carolyn says. “I just started adding garnishes to Bloody Marys. Little things like a blue cheese olive, mozzarella balls. Then I added pepperoni, and cheese, and baby corn, and then bacon, a spicy green bean. Celery, of course. Whatever you can think of. People send me ideas of things like fried chicken and crab, but I don’t get that fancy.”

To us, these look like the fanciest Bloody Marys ever. To Carolyn, they’re pretty simple: “I just use a mix, and doctor it up with Tabasco, Worcestershire, lime, celery salt. I used to be able to find bacon salt for the glass rims, but I haven’t found it lately. I’ll add horseradish – the squeezable kind – and vodka, not too much. It’s more for everything else. People don’t get drunk on my Bloody Mary,” Carolyn laughs. 

And then there’s the skewer, which is the vehicle for all of the aforementioned garnishes, and how Carolyn’s Bloody Marys have earned the name “Breakfast in a Glass.” To top it all off, there are deviled eggs, either threaded onto the skewers or perched on top. “I always have extra deviled eggs because there are guys who love them,” Carolyn says.

Skewers and garnishes, eggs included, get prepped pre-game, so that all there is to do at the tailgate is mix and assemble. Others work on their assigned contributions – maybe biscuits and gravy, maybe made-to-order omelets – at the tailgate. If it’s a night game, there will be fajitas and oysters grilled in muffin tins, some using Carolyn’s grandmother’s Rockefeller recipe. But Breakfast in a Glass is reserved especially for Bloody Mary mornings.

Carolyn Sunseri’s Bloody Marys sometimes come with a deviled egg on top

Carolyn Sunseri’s Breakfast-in-a-Glass Bloody Marys

Salt and pepper
Fresh limes
Celery salt
Worcestershire
Tabasco
Creamy horseradish sauce
Vodka
Zing Zang Bloody Mary Mix
Ice
Crispy bacon strips
Celery stalks
Spicy pickled green beans

For the skewers: Deviled eggs, blue cheese-stuffed olives, kalamata olives, pepperoncini, pickled okra, pepperoni, mozzarella balls, pickled corn, cherry tomatoes, etc…

Mix together salt and pepper in a shallow bowl. Rim a glass with lime juice and dip in the salt and pepper mixture. Add a squeeze of lime and dashes of celery salt, Worcestershire, Tabasco, and horseradish sauce to the glass. Add about a jigger of vodka. Top that with Zing Zang, filling the glass halfway to the top. Cover with another glass and shake gently. Add ice to fill the remainder of the glass. Garnish with bacon, celery, green beans, and a skewer.

Ellie Clark, Susan Clark, and Linley Clark – two generations of Tigers – tailgate together at LSU

Tiger Tailgating: The ‘Gold (and Purple) Standard’  

If you search for the number one college tailgating scene in the country, you’ll find LSU ranked at the top. In U.S. News & World Report’s “20 Fun Campuses for College Tailgating,” Dan Wolken, a USA Today sports columnist, said, “It's kind of the gold standard for food on game day. You can walk through the parking lot in Baton Rouge and you’re going to get five different recipes of jambalaya, and it’s all going to be good." 

Susan Clark, an account executive at Old Republic Title who attended LSU and now has two daughters there, backs him up. “Jambalaya is an obvious,” she says of her college days tailgating at LSU and now, going back as a parent. “It’s an easy thing to make a lot of.” But there’s so much more.

“One of my favorites is the crawfish pies that my friend’s husband picks up and brings in from New Orleans,” Susan says. “They’re not a pie-shape, they’re more shaped like an empanada, and I’m hoping they do them this year because I’m going to be going by their tailgate for the Ole Miss game.”

Other notable LSU Parade Grounds finds: king cakes, Popeyes and Cane’s chicken strips, snowball machines, po-boys, and caterers grilling chicken and beef skewers. Finger sandwiches are an easy one; pimento cheese ranks high.

Pimento cheese, served as a dip or in a sandwich, is an LSU tailgate favorite

Pimento Cheese Finger Sandwiches

Pimento cheese (this recipe was originally shared in our online Back Porch Table column) is a great addition to a tailgating menu. Serve it as a dip or pull it into a sandwich for easy finger food.  

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup mayonnaise (such as Duke’s)
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 medium jalapeño, seeded and minced
1 4-ounce jar pimentos, drained well and diced
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese 
2 cups shredded smoked gouda cheese
White bread
Butter, softened

Mix cream cheese and mayonnaise with a fork until smooth. Stir in the spices, jalapeño, and pimentos. Fold in the shredded cheeses and mix well.

Lay the bread slices in a single layer on the counter. Spread each with a thin coat of butter (this ensures your sandwiches won’t get soggy). Spread pimento cheese on half of the bread slices, then top with the other half of the bread slices, buttered sides down. Cut off crusts, then slice each sandwich into thirds. Place on a plate or serving tray covered with a slightly damp tea towel topped with plastic wrap until serving (this step keeps the sandwiches from drying out).

Whatever your 2024 tailgating plans might be, enjoy the season everyone looks forward to!