Healthier Super Bowl Snacks

Okay confession: I am really only watching the Super Bowl for the commercials.  And the half-time show.  But food is still a necessary part of that and there's a bunch of healthy appetizer recipes I've been wanting to try so I thought this was the perfect occasion.

Here's what was on the menu:

Spinach Dip from Skinny Taste in phyllo cups

While this was my brainchild, my sister made these from start to finish.  First she made the phyllo cups.  She layered 4 sheets of phyllo dough (about 8x8 sheets) on a plate and brushed some butter between each layer.  Then she cut that into fourths and pressed them into greased muffin tins and repeated to make 12 phyllo cups.  They baked at 375 degrees for about 6 minutes (we pulled them out when they were browned).   

Then she made the spinach dip and baked it in a 9x9 pan.  Our original thought was to cook the dip in the phyllo cups but after we saw how quickly they browned we were worried about burning them.  So we baked the dip, then divided it into the cups afterwards.  It worked out perfectly.  And we cut out a lot of extra calories by serving the dip in cups instead of using chips.

Buffalo Chicken Quinoa Bites from Nature Box

These were amazing.  I don't have a mini muffin tin, so I shaped these into little balls and put them on a baking sheet lined with foil.

I didn't think they were going to get crunchy on the outside but they did.  The quinoa kept us full, so it was more like a meal than mindless munching on snacks.  These little bites had the flavor of buffalo chicken dip, but minus a lot of cheese and the chips or crackers needed for a dip. 

They definitely have a little kick so the blue cheese dipping sauce is a must!

Baked Blooming Onion

I sort of combined two recipes to make this.  Mostly I followed this recipe from Gimme Some Oven.  She gives really great directions on how to cut the onion.

To coat the onion I used 2 egg whites and for the breadcrumb coating I used 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs, 1/2 tbsp garlic powder, and 1/2 tbsp paprika.

When I put the onion on a baking sheet it kept leaning to one side.  So I put it in a large oven safe bowl instead.  I baked it according to the recipe, but when we tried it the onion was still pretty crunchy.  So I put it back in the oven for about 15 more minutes.  The onion petals were much softer after the extra cook time.

The dipping sauce I made was from this recipe.  I left out the horseradish, and the dip was perfect with the onion.

Baked Mozzarella Sticks from Skinny Taste

We only made 8 mozzarella sticks (instead of the full 24) because we didn't want to be tempted to eat any more.  They were delicious but they did become un-melty pretty quickly, so next time we will make sure to eat these first.

Here's our table with all the goodies: