Donna Kelce Shares Her Go-to Easy Appetizer Idea

It’s an easy assertion to say that few people know about football than Travis and Jason Kelce. Their combined four Super Bowl titles and wildly popular football-focused podcast,New Heightsback that claim up. As a result, I’d also hazard a guess that few people are familiar with watching football — or feeding the people who play it — than their mother, Donna Kelce.

The football mom and one of Glamour’s 2024 Women of the Year has previously shared what it was like to feed her two athletic sons as they grew up. (Spoiler alert: it involved alotof protein and pasta.) And now she’s revealing about what she’s looking for in great game day food, just in time for the most exciting part of football season.

This month, Donna Kelce is teaming up with Pillsbury to ask fans to vote for a winner in the 53rd Pillsbury Bakeoff Contest. While discussing the four finalists in the competition — who are vying for a chance to win a $50,000 grand prize with their own game-day recipes — Kelce gave us the lowdown on what she likes to serve as a crowd-pleasing snack. And it happens to be incredibly easy.

Whether it’s for an afternoon of football or as a simple appetizer that works for any party, Kelce tells Food & Wine that she likes to take a can of Pillsbury crescent roll dough and “make sure that all the perforations are closed. Then cut it into eight squares.

“Take each square, put it in a (cupcake) liner, and then into a muffin tin. Take mini Brie cheeses and throw the mini Bries inside the crescent roll squares.” She notes that after baking off these homemade brie bites, the four corners of each crescent roll square don’t quite close, leaving a crispy, golden-brown cup full of melted cheese.

This snack is easily customizable. If you have a miniature muffin pan, you could cut the dough into smaller squares and do cubes of Brie inside each bite for snackable appetizers. Kelce also details that “I sometimes throw in cherry jelly or some kind of fruit, maybe some dried fruit like cranberries… for sweetness. Other times, I will throw in a little bit of ham and some onions for something savory.”

Kelce also suggests adding nuts or bacon. You’d be hard-pressed to find other ingredients that don’t pair well with brie and buttery pastry dough. Per Kelce, “You can add almost anything into those little cups, and they go the fastest.”

If Brie isn’t your thing or you’re searching for other ideas to pair with Donna Kelce’s simple snack for your next game day gathering, Pillsbury’s bakeoff finalists have a few excellent ideas. Just make sure you vote for your favorite recipe at pillsbury.bakeoff.com between January 10 and January 25.