Football Veggie Tray – Easy Game Day Platter
It’s easy to make this adorable veggie platter for your next football party! Made with fresh veggies in the shape of a football.
Honestly, it’s getting super expensive to buy a pre-made vegetable tray at the grocery store! I still think there’s nothing wrong with purchasing a fresh veggie tray when you’re short on time, but I think most of us can agree the price for a good vegetable platter is getting a little offensive! When my beloved Kansas City Chiefs reached the AFC Championship, I decided to make a football-themed veggie tray. So, I used my charcuterie skills to arrange raw veggies into a football shape for our game day spread!
First, I considered making this crudité tray in the shape of a football field. My idea was to use use green items like veggies and cauliflower florets for the yard lines. But, I ultimately decided I’d be able to work in a more colors if I went with the classic American football shape.
My vision for this design was to place the football shape in the middle of the tray. Then, I’d layer in green veggies on the far ends of the tray to represent the “endzones.” Finally, I’d use colorful pepper slices on the sides to represent the fan! I chose red and yellow peppers for my favorite team. Can you guess who?
I was so happy with how this stylish Super Bowl tray turned out! This easy veggie tray took me about 25 minutes to assemble. If you recruit someone to help you with chopping, it could certainly be done in 15-20 minutes! It made me feel good to know I was contributing healthy food to our game-day appetizer spread, and the veggies paired so well with small bowls of healthy dips like Jalapeno Lime Ranch Dip and Veggie Cream Cheese spread!
You will need a large platter or serving tray to make this crudité platter! actually used a rimmed sheet pan, which I lined with aluminum foil for easy cleanup.
Football Veggie Tray – Recipe Substitutions
The best veggie tray is the one that uses the fresh vegetables you have on hand at home! Feel free to substitute your favorite vegetables for any element of this great recipe. I have included some ideas below:
- Substitute fresh snap peas, broccoli, steamed green beans or asparagus for the green veggies.
- Substitute any seasonal veggies you can find!
- Use sliced mini sweet peppers or radish slices instead of bell peppers.
- You could absolutely use this same design to make a football fruit tray instead of a veggie tray.
- Use any variety or color of cherry tomatoes.
- Cut your own carrot sticks in place of the baby carrots
Check out all of my easy appetizers on Blackberry Babe.
Serving Suggestions
This game-day veggie tray will delight guests at your tailgate party, Super Bowl party, game night, or any game-day party! The ultimate pairing is my Game Day Charcuterie Board.
Or keep it light and serve this football tray alongside a delicious dip or two. I recommend choosing a variety of creamy dips like homemade ranch dip, dill pickle dip, chip dip, dill dip, ranch dressing, French onion dip, white bean dip or hummus!
For more substantial meal, add finger foods! Consider serving this veggie tray on an appetizer table with simple sliders, Jalapeno Popcorn, Smoked Buffalo Chicken Dip (with tortilla chips), or my Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts. You could also serve it with a cheeseball shaped like a football!
Storing Leftovers
Store leftover veggies in airtight containers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days! We enjoyed munching on the leftover vegetables for the days following our watch party.
The best part of this football veggie tray? If you line your platter with aluminum foil or parchment paper, there’s no dishes to do afterwards!
If you make this recipe, I’d love to hear how it went for you in the comments below.
Football Veggie Tray – Easy Game Day Platter
Ingredients
- 10 ounces grape tomatoes
- 10 ounces baby carrots
- 25 celery sticks, sliced to 3-4 inch pieces
- 1 large cucumber, sliced
- 3 large bell peppers, sliced
- 1 cheese slice, for football laces
Instructions
- First, arrange the grape into the shape of a football.
- Fill the football shape with the baby carrots.
- Place the celery sticks in a diagonal in each corner.
- Next to the celery sticks, add layered rows of cucumber slices.
- On the sides of the tray, add the pepper slices.
- Finally, cut the cheese slice into one long, thin piece, and three short, thin pieces to make the football laces.
- Cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 day before serving.
I’m not at ALL artsy, but I made this and now I sure APPEAR to be artsy to the people at this Super Bowl party!! It’s so pretty and fun and delicious. I put orange peppers in the end zones for the goal posts. Would have used yellow peppers but I didn’t have any. And I didn’t use any red peppers because: 1. We wanted to avoid any appearance of rooting for the Patriots and also 2. My son/assistant ate them all.
Haha, I love this! We were definitely team Seahawks here too. Glad it worked out for you! 🙂
Made this for our bowl game party! Was making a veggie tray so I thought I might as well try to make it cute. I added bowls of hummus and ranch in the endzones and it turned out great.
Great idea! Glad it turned out for you. 🙂
Fun, creative and EASY! It was perfect for game day!
Thank you!
I loved this so much! It was a great pairing with our dips, and the presentation was so cute for the game!
So glad it turned out cute for you! 🙂
Made for our Ravens watch party and everybody loved it. Very cute and very easy.
I love this comment so I’ll let the Ravens thing slide! Thank you. 🙂
Turned out great for our football watch party thank you