Food To Make For Poker Night

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Honey-Wheat Pretzel Twists Snack on these to satisfy your craving for sweet, salty, and crunchy. Unlike the pale, sugar-laden honey-wheat pretzel twists sold in bags at the grocery store, these are.

  • Make your own or get a big box of warm-in-the-oven hors d’oeurves at a warehouse club store. Just keep the food away from the playing table. If you’re playing poker, you might be thinking martinis are in order. Martinis will make your party upscale for sure (but they do call to mind James Bond, and his game was baccarat).
  • Best Poker Night Foods. The food you choose, or lack thereof, can make or break an otherwise successful poker night. One tip to really wow your poker buddies is to set out a buffet server. Make some meatballs and a couple of other warm dishes. Well fed guests are happy guests!
  • You’re finally ready to call in the crew and get gaming. For optimal family bonding, make game night a tech-free zone. Have everyone place their phones in a separate room and turn off the TV. Now, it’s time to snack—then attack!

Photo by Free-Photos, Public Domain

Is pizza the best snack for a home poker game?

If you want to host a poker home game with friends and make an impression, it’s essential to make sure everyone is comfortable around the poker table as well as suitably watered and fed. One of the main reasons why home poker game hosts become regulars is for their varied selection of food and beverages.

Although poker games in a land-based casino are a little more formal, home games allow you to let loose a little and have fun with it. Most poker players would say that dishes and bites that allow you to nibble with one hand are ideal, allowing you to continue playing your poker hand with the other. If you’re planning on offering and serving food during a home game, here are some fun recipe ideas that your pals can snack on without slowing the game down too much.

Steak and mushroom Reubens

Who doesn’t like a melt-in-the-mouth steak sandwich? These moreish Reubens are ideal to pick up and eat with one hand while the action unfolds around you. You’ll need the following ingredients before you get started:

  • Olive oil
  • Flank steak
  • Large shiitake mushrooms
  • Seeded rye bread
  • Thousand Island dressing
  • Sauerkraut
  • Sliced Gruyere cheese

Food To Make For Poker Nightbot

These sandwiches should take no longer than half-an-hour to prepare, so you could get them ready before your pals arrive or during a mid-game interval. Get your skillet to a high temperature and start cooking your flank steak pieces, ensuring both sides are well seasoned with salt and pepper. Cook the steak until it’s medium-rare, which will take at least a few minutes for either side.

Remove the steak from the skillet and set aside to rest, before adding the mushrooms. After around two minutes, remove the mushrooms from the skillet and begin slicing your steak on the diagonal. Layer each sandwich with steak, mushroom, sauerkraut and top it with a slice of Gruyere cheese. Cook the bottom of the sandwiches on the skillet until firm and golden to help melt the cheese.

Vegetable spring rolls

Homemade spring rolls look simple, but they do require a little effort to get right. Don’t be fooled by the long list of ingredients as it all comes together pretty quickly:

  • Beansprouts
  • Carrots
  • Cabbage
  • Vermicelli rice noodles
  • Garlic
  • Ginger
  • Coriander
  • Rice wine
  • Soy sauce
  • Cornflour
  • Sesame oil
  • Spring roll sheets

Start by soaking your vermicelli noodles in pre-boiled water. Heat your sesame oil in a wok and fry up the sliced carrot, cabbage and beansprouts. Stir in the sliced ginger and garlic until soft, before adding the rice wine, soy sauce and coriander. Once stir-fried, remove from the wok to a bowl, being careful to remove excess moisture that could spoil the spring rolls.

Lay out one sheet of spring roll pastry on a diagonal, so that one corner of the pastry is facing you. Put one tablespoon of your spring roll mixture on the corner and start to roll the sheet diagonally so that it tightly holds the filling. Fold in the edges from each side and brush the pastry with a mixture of cornflour and water. Serve with some sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Homemade falafel and hummus

Tasty bite-size balls of homemade falafel are a great poker night treat, particularly for vegetarians that enjoy wholesome foods that boost wellbeing. They’re quick and fun to make, providing you have the right ingredients:

  • Can of chickpeas
  • Flour
  • Chopped onion
  • Garlic pepper
  • Ground cumin
  • Baking powder
  • Salt
  • Parsley
  • Vegetable oil
  • Hummus
Nightbot

Get a food blender and add the chickpeas, chopped onion, three tablespoons of flour, garlic pepper, cumin, baking powder and salt. Mix this all together in your processor, along with the fresh parsley, until it is thoroughly blended. Then roll out falafel balls using one tablespoon of mixture at a time, before coating each ball in flour.

Make sure your pan has at least a depth of half-an-inch of hot oil before frying the falafel balls in batches until golden brown and crispy, before serving with a fresh, cool hummus dip.

Two-meat meatballs in a moreish BBQ sauce

Most meat-eaters will appreciate a good meatball, especially if they can eat it from a cocktail stick while they play their poker hand. To make a few dozen two-meat (pork and beef) meatballs, you’ll need the following:

  • One egg
  • A quarter of a cup of oats
  • 1lb of ground beef
  • 1lb of ground pork
  • A quarter of a cup of parmesan cheese
  • A splash of hot sauce
  • A splash of Tabasco sauce
  • Your choice of barbecue sauce

Combine the hot and Tabasco sauces with the ground meats, egg, oats and parmesan cheese into one deep bowl. Massage the ingredients together and start to make meatball-sized balls. Sear the individual meatballs in a pan until cooked through.

Food To Make For Poker Night 2

Once all meatballs are seared and cooked through, top them with your favorite barbecue sauce and cook in an oven for another 15 minutes on a medium-to-low heat. Of course, if you’re worried about the meatballs and their sauce being too messy and ruining your poker table or cards, you can always play poker online together instead. You could each bring a laptop or tablet round and join the same cash game table or tournament.

Pizza Margherita with cherry tomatoes

Thin slices of Margherita pizza, topped with cherry tomatoes that are bursting with sweet flavour. Does any snack scream “poker night” more than this? Get the following ingredients in before you make a start:

  • Tube of pizza dough
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Garlic
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • Crushed red pepper
  • Fennel seeds
  • Mozzarella (diced)
  • Fresh basil

Preheat your oven to around 425 degrees Fahrenheit. In the meantime, roll out your pizza dough onto a large sheet of baking parchment. Fold over the edge of your pizza dough to make a border/crust. Heat a pan with olive oil, cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper. Saute the tomatoes until charred.

Transfer the tomatoes to a mixing bowl with the garlic, fennel and crushed red pepper. Mix gently, being sure to leave chunks of the cherry tomatoes intact. Add in the cubed mozzarella and chopped fresh basil. Sprinkle your desired cheese onto the pizza dough first before dolloping even amounts of the tomato mixture across the pizza. Bake until golden crisp – usually 25+ minutes.

If your poker pals would also appreciate sweet treats to have with one hand at the table, our peanut butter chocolate bars will have them eating out of the palm of your hand. Hosting an awesome poker home game doesn’t need to be complicated. With good drinks, good music, good company and particularly good food you can leave your friends focusing more on how delicious your snacks are rather than how good your poker hands are!

Poker night is more than just a night of playing card games. We all know that it’s a night of fun with the boys and girls while sharing delicious food and drinks.

When it comes to food for poker night, it’s easy to fall into the trap of serving the usual salty, fatty, or sugary fare that ends up on the table.

In most cases, most people won’t mind. However, if you want to have that one poker night to remember or become the undisputed “best poker night host”, you’d better upgrade your poker game night snacks.

Lucky for you, we are here to help.

Food for Poker Night Recipes

We have scoured the internet for the best game night snack ideas so you don’t have to. Don’t worry these recipes won’t require the skills of a gourmet chef since they’re relatively easy to prepare. However, you can trust that they’re downright delicious.

Without further ado…

Philly Cheesesteak Nachos (Prep Time: 20 mins.)

When it comes to poker game snacks, it’s hard to go wrong with serving nachos. Upgrade the traditional nachos by combining it with a fan-favorite sandwich, the Philly Cheesesteak.

Check out this bound-to-be-favorite nacho recipe from All Recipes:

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/2 large onion, diced
  • 1/2 pound shaved rib-eye, chopped
  • 1 (18 ounce) package restaurant-style tortilla chips
  • 1 (8 fl. oz.) jar processed cheese spread (such as Kraft® Cheez Whiz®)
  • 2 fresh jalapeno peppers, sliced

Directions:

  • Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir until softened, 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Cook rib-eye in the same skillet, stirring occasionally, until browned and juices have evaporated, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir onion back into the skillet.
  • Place a handful of tortilla chips on each plate. Spoon rib-eye and onion mixture over chips; top with cheese spread and jalapeno slices.

If jalapenos are not available, you can use pickled jalapenos as a substitute.

Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich (Prep and Cook Time: 3 hrs. 40 mins.)

If you want to serve something with more bite, this recipe for the Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich from none other than Guy Fieri of The Food Network fame should get the job done.

Food To Make For Poker Night At Home

Be sure to start preparing and cooking earlier because this recipe takes a lot of time.

Ingredients:

  • 4 pounds, top round with fat cap
  • 3 tablespoons Italian seasoning
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 tablespoons fresh cracked black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
  • 3 tablespoons bacon fat, or canola oil
  • 3 yellow onions, chopped
  • 1 cup garlic, whole cloves
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 cup beef stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 6 sourdough baguette rolls halved, toasted
  • 1 cup chopped giardiniera vinaigrette vegetables
  • 1 cup jarred red sweet peppers

Directions:

  • Rub meat with dry ingredients, cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.
  • Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.
  • Add meat to a roasting pan with bacon fat, add onions and garlic, sauté for 15 minutes, deglaze with wine, and add Worcestershire sauce, beef stock, and bay leaves.
  • Place roasting pan in the oven and cook for 3 hours, uncovered, or until an instant-read thermometer registers 135 degrees F in the center. Remove, let cool, then slice very thin.
  • Cool broth in roasting pan and remove the fat that rises to the top. Strain.
  • Reheat the broth, and add the sliced meat. Place some meat on each toasted roll, ladle with some broth and top with giardiniera vegetables and red peppers.

Slow Cooker Ranch Chicken Tacos (Prep and Cook Time: 4 hrs. 15 mins.)

Food To Make For Poker Night

This is not the tacos that we all know and love. Instead of the ever-familiar salsa, we will be using ranch.

This recipe from Who Needs a Cape is guaranteed to be a hit with your poker buddies.

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 tablespoons taco seasoning (or 1 packet of taco seasoning)
  • 1 packet of ranch seasoning
  • 8-10 small taco-sized flour tortillas
  • ranch dressing, to taste
  • 2-3 cups of cole slaw, without sauce
  • ½ red onion, thinly sliced
  • ¼ cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
  • Optional: shredded cheese, diced avocado, diced tomato

Food To Make For Poker Night Games

Instructions:

  • Place chicken breasts in slow cooker. Pour in water, then sprinkle chicken with taco seasoning and ranch seasoning. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-7 hours.
  • About 20 minutes before serving, use a slotted spoon to transfer chicken to a bowl, shred with 2 forks, then return to slow cooker and stir.
  • When ready to serve, fill tortillas with shredded chicken, then drizzle with ranch dressing.
  • Top with slaw, red onions, cilantro, and any additional desired toppings such as shredded cheese, avocado, or tomatoes. Serve immediately.

Feeling Hungry Yet?

All of these poker snacks are guaranteed to be delicious and will make your guests ask for more. These foods for poker night recipes are very easy to prepare and cook, and the ingredients are all easy to get.

What do you think of these recipes? Do you have a favorite poker night snack recipe? Feel free to share in the comments!

For more fun articles and tips about card games, visit CardGameInfo for a great collection of card game blogs.