the snackadium

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snackadium Follow Me on Pinterest

Yesterday was an awesome day. The weather was beautiful, we got a lot done around the house and my parents came over to watch the Packer game. They don’t have television yet and my dad really wanted to catch the game. What a great opportunity to debut my first snackadium!

{I still have to pinch myself that my parents can just drive over. No planes and no trains…just an automobile and about 30 minutes. It’s so awesome!}

I had three major goals in mind when constructing our snackadium:

  1. Make it just a smidge more upscale than what’s typical while still keeping the snacks football-appropriate
  2. Include the kids with production and assembly
  3. Keep the amount of food to a reasonable amount since we were just 4 adults & 2 kids (this also gives anyone a reason to throw a snackadium together anytime, not just when they’re having a big party!)

This challenge came from Pillsbury who had their own criteria:

  1. Incorporate their pizza dough
  2. Incorporate their crescent roll dough

So…keeping all of those things in mind, I came up with our perfect snackadium! It might not be the biggest or even the prettiest snackadium ever created, but I guarantee that we had the most fun making it!

One of the best things about serving a snackadium instead of the same snacks served the traditional way (in this case, 8 bowls and two platters)? Little to no cleanup. When the food is gone just throw the whole thing away! (Or, better yet, keep it for your next snackadium :)

Here are the goodies we used:

snackadium Follow Me on Pinterest

From the top:

  1. Crackers – for snacking and to go with the cheese
  2. Goldfish – as requested by the smaller ones living in our house
  3. pomegranate arils – because they’re sooo good for you, they’re in season and they’re fun to eat
  4. grapes – good for you and they go great with cheese
  5. mexican chicken pizza with avocado sauce – all of the snackdiums I’ve seen use either guacamole for the center or a combination of guacamole with other dips. I wanted our snackadium to include our dinner as well – and since pizza also makes a good snack, it was the perfect center! I just made a quick avocado sauce (made in advance to make assembly time easier) and spread it over the top. I let the girls pipe on the sour cream yard lines.
  6. kettle corn – because you’ve gotta have a few snacks just for the sake of having snacks. It is a snackadium after all.
  7. chips! – refer to #6.
  8. cheese galore – cheddar, brie, muenster & jarlsberg. {cheese = happiness}
  9. bite-sized shrimp & bacon sammies on mini crescent rolls – these were my favorite part! I really wanted to separate the seating sections with sandwiches but we just didn’t have enough people to justify making 30 regular sized sandwiches (although how perfect would that be for a crowd of around 30?!). Since crescent rolls make for some killer sandwiches, I decided to cut the Pillsbury crescent roll dough into four pieces, making four mini rolls instead of one large. Shrimp seemed more upscale than just ham or turkey and adding bacon was pretty much mandatory for something football related. So my little bite-sized sandwiches were born! {Full recipe and step-by-step photos can be found here}
  10. it’s not labeled in the photo but I made some breadsticks with a second tube of Pillsbury pizza dough. They were a great way to “close” the sections!

So how did we put it all together?

snackadium assembly

snackadium assembly

snackadiym assembly

snackadium assembly

Snackadium – printable instructions

Items needed:

  • Sturdy cardboard covered in foil or parchment. We used a size of about 30 x 22 which was just about perfect.
  • Enough snacks for at least eight sections
  • Ingredients for your “field” or “center”
  1. Place your covered cardboard on a sturdy, flat surface.
  2. Prebake your Pillsbury pizza dough, if using {the great thing about Pillsbury pizza dough is that it’s already the perfect shape and size for your football field!}
  3. Place prebaked pizza dough (or whatever you’re using) in the center where you want your field to be. This is a very important step; it allows you to set everything else up in advance and know that the space in the middle is the exact size you want.
  4. Add section dividers with bite-sized crescent roll sandwiches.
  5. Add breadsticks for even more separation, if desired.
  6. Add snacks to seating sections.
  7. Remove prebaked pizza dough, add toppings and bake.
  8. Add baked pizza back to center, top with avocado sauce, pipe on sour cream yard lines. Slice pizza (preferably with a pizza cutter).
  9. Spend the next three hours pigging out!
  10. Beer is highly recommended as an accompaniment :-)

Note: The pizza we made was with quick & easy in mind. I bought a rotisserie chicken and tossed half the meat with a 1/2 jar of tomatillo salsa* (I did this in advance and let it sit in the fridge, then brought to room temp about an hour before baking). I topped this with a plenty of shredded mexican-blend cheese and baked until cheese was melted and it was hot throughout. Then we just topped it with the sauce and piped on the sour cream lines. Voila! (The avocado sauce was simply 2 avocados, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup cilantro, juice of 1/2 a lime and a teaspoon of kosher salt, all blended in my food processor until it was very smooth. This was also kept in the fridge until ready, with saran wrap placed directly on the sauce to keep it from turning brown.) Adding black beans and fresh corn would be awesome, too.

*If you mix together the entire chicken and a whole jar of salsa, you can either save the leftover chicken for a second pizza or use it to make a quick white bean and chicken chili the next day. Just mix together the remaining chicken mixture with 2 cups of chicken stock and add two cans of white beans. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Add a little more salsa if needed and season to taste. Serve with some quesadillas on the side and an ice cold beer!

Have you ever made a snackadium? What did you put on yours? And if you haven’t made one, what do you think would make the perfect snacks for one?



I have partnered with Pillsbury through DailyBuzz to help promote their Crescent Roll and Pizza Crust products. I have been compensated for my time commitment to work with this product. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. Thank you Pillsbury for this awesome opportunity to create a Snackadium!

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