Tailgate At Home with DIGIORNO® pizza and Homemade Dipping Sauces

Make the right call during the BIG game this year and tailgate at home.  It’s simple, easy and stress free which will leave you sitting down just in time to enjoy the game.   Serve DIGIORNO® pizza, cut into strips with homemade dipping sauce on the sides.  Sure to be a crowd pleaser and having you scoring a TOUCHDOWN!

The BIG game is so close and we’ve started to plan our game day strategy…and by strategy I’m talking food.  We love to host people at our house, I mean that’s what hosting is all about, surrounded by friends and family, watching the game and enjoying a huge spread.  I’m an overachiever when it comes to hosting so I always find myself holed up in the kitchen still making food when it’s half time.  Ugh!  But not this year, folks, not this year.  I’ve made my game plan ahead of time which will leave me kicked back in a chair, ready to roll come game time.

I’m talking pizza!  Yes, everyone’s favorite game time, dinner time, tailgating food, pizza.  The best part about it, it’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno. It’s fresh-baked taste straight from your oven so you don’t have to wait on the pizza guy who’s delivering cold, soggy pizza, less than sub par pizza. So make sure you make the right call and make DIGIORNO® pizza for your whole crew. The only thing that stands between me, my chair and the tv, is 20 minutes in the oven. BOOM, done.

We love pizza in this house.  My husband actually just said last night for dinner that he could eat pizza every day of his life.  So when I was deciding what to serve this year, it dawned on me as soon as I opened the freezer-PIZZA.  I thought maybe I could make pizzas and cut them into sticks and make a few dipping sauces to serve alongside.  Everyone loves a dippable finger food.

I headed to the store and picked up 2 varieties of DIGIORNO® pizza; Three Meat and Spinach, Mushroom and Garlic.  I knew the guys would love the meat and the girls would really dig the veggies.  There were also many other varieties to please any pizza lover.  To be honest here, DIGIORNO® pizza is a household favorite.  The dough is always perfectly crispy, yet soft, the toppings are plenty and it bakes up to perfection.  It’s mouth-watering and delicious.  You’ll never find less than 2 in my freezer at a time and that’s why I love it for game time food.

While I was at the store, I also picked up some other game day essentials.  Serving dishes, plates, napkins, cups, tablecloths, football themed toothpicks and football penalty flags, I grabbed it all. We host the BIG game every year and also several football games throughout the year so I figured I could always store the extra if we didn’t need them.  But I’m sure our hungry guests will go back and back again for more pizza dipping sticks.

Here’s how I cut them into sticks after they came out of the oven.  I cut the pizza in half, then cut it in half again which game me four equal triangles.  Cutting from the center outward, I cut each triangle into 4 strips.  Therefore, I was left with 16 total pizza sticks.

In addition to baking the pizzas, I figured I should probably do some work since I’ve already have DIGIORNO® doing the rest, so I decided I would make some dipping sauces that complimented the pizzas.  For the three meat pizza I decided on a spicy marinara sauce and for the Spinach, Mushroom and Garlic, a garlic ranch dipping.

The sauces were simple to make.  For the marinara sauce, I added some garlic paste, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, crushed red pepper and some seasonings to a pan and let it come to a boil and then let it simmer until it thickened.  For the garlic ranch sauce I added some garlic paste and herbs to mayo, sour cream and thinned it out with a little milk.  Each sauce took me about 5 minutes each to prepare.

Here’s a little picture below to show you how to make garlic paste.  It’s so simple to make at home but you can of course use store-bought to save you even more time in the kitchen. Mince 3 cloves of garlic.  Sprinkle on some coarse salt and using the back of your knife, begin to rub the salt into the garlic.  Keep piling up the garlic and rubbing the knife back and forth until a paste forms.

You can add garlic paste to your cooking, sauces, just about anything you’d like.  Here I added it to my Garlic Ranch dipping sauce and used the remainder of it in the Spicy Marinara sauce.

The spicy marniara sauce paired awesomely with the three meat pizza.  It added a little kick which was a fun twist.  The Garlic ranch dipping sauce was great with the spinach, mushroom and garlic pizza as it boosted the garlic flavor and added a hint of ranch that us Midwestern’s always add to our pizza.  Another tip, if you want to save even more time, DIGIORNO® also offers pizza dipping sticks but we like to make our own and purchase the rising crust varieties.

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Tailgate At Home with DIGIORNO® pizza and homemade dipping sauce

Cook 5 mins

Total 5 mins

Author Strawberry Blondie Kitchen

Make the right call during the BIG game this year and tailgate at home. It's simple, easy and stress free which will leave you sitting down just in time to enjoy the game. Serve DIGIORNO® pizza, cut into strips with homemade dipping sauce on the sides. Sure to be a crowd pleaser and having you scoring a TOUCHDOWN!

Ingredients

• Spicy Marinara Dipping Sauce
• 1 tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1-14.5 oz can of Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic & Oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasonings
• salt and pepper
• Garlic Ranch Dipping Sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste
• 1.2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chives, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon dried dill
• 2 tablespoon milk

Instructions

1. Spicy Marinara Dipping Sauce
2. In a small pot, add oil and turn heat to medium.
3. Add garlic paste and crushed red pepper flakes and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add in tomato paste and cook for an additional minute.
5. Add in can of diced tomatoes, Italian seasonings and salt and pepper and continue to cook for 3-5 minutes.
6. Garlic Ranch Dipping Sauce
7. In a medium bowl add all ingredients and stir to combine. Add more milk for a thinner consistency.

Notes

Spicy Marinara slightly adapted from Five-Minute Spicy Marinara

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to this weekend!  How are you celebrating the BIG game this year?  Is your team playing this year?  Do you watch the game, root for the commercials or just watch the half time performances?  As for me, I do all 3.

For more tips and inspiration on how to #maketherightcall and to watch a “Typical Game Day Party Guests” video series check out DIGIORNO® Twitter page @DiGiornoPizza or Youtube.com/DiGiornopizzas

Watch Clay Matthews in a few videos titled “Typical Game Day Party Guests” and let him school you on how not to be one of those guests this year!  Hint, serve DIGIORNO®

No matter what you do this Sunday, have fun, be safe and serve DIGIORNO®

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.