Everything You Need to Host a Winning Super Bowl Party

The Great Jones cookware line puts a vibrant spin on culinary staples, turning the stocking of a kitchen into a—dare we say—fun experience. It earns a very good rating for cooking evenness in our tests, plus it heats up quickly and cleans up nicely. Pair it with all the necessary ingredients for chocolate chip cookies or a sheet pan dinner and you’ll be golden.

For more options: Best Sheet Pans

There’s something to be said about splurging on the basics with the intention of elevating the everyday. Case in point: This speckled plastic cutting board can easily transition from a prep station to the dinner table. Its eye-catching composition, with the bright yellow handle, is just one reason to love it—it also happens to be quite sturdy and available in a variety of equally fun colorways.

Serve up snacks with some pizazz with these melamine dishes. This 12-piece set’s beautiful, medium-weight plates and bowls are ideal for almost any situation that might require unbreakable plates, from Super Bowl parties to dining alfresco. Our at-home testers found them neither especially heavy nor flimsy. They sit evenly, have a smooth, unblemished glaze, and aren’t scratched by knives and forks. They made a loud clatter when dropped but didn’t break.

For anyone who has ever struggled to open a bottle of wine with a waiter’s corkscrew (present company included), here’s one item that will be useful for "I almost exclusively drink wine at home and love this electric wine opener for opening bottles," says CR writer Jodhaira Rodriguez. "I struggled to get the cork out of bottles with a manual corkscrew for a very long time before my dad introduced me to the world of electric wine openers. This was a game changer for me."

Not everyone wants or needs to cook for a party, which is exactly why frozen pizza exists. In our recent evaluation, this Red Baron pie was a crowd-pleaser, with a balance of flavors and textures that are just right. You get the distinct taste of crust, sauce, and cheese in each bite. “Overall, this one exceeded my expectations,” said Lauren Friedman, who heads up CR’s health and food team. As it says on the box, the crust isn’t too thick or too thin. The sauce is the standout here. “It’s very peppery and gives the whole pizza a more well-rounded and interesting taste.”

For more options: Best Frozen Pizzas

The original. The best. The pinnacle of hot dogs. This one comes from one of the oldest hot dog companies in the U.S. Its founder, Nathan Handwerker, was a Polish immigrant who worked at a Coney Island hot dog stand until he was able to scrounge up enough money to open his own business in 1916. That full century of expertise is evident in this hot dog, which one evaluator, Paul Hope, a Consumer Reports home and appliance reporter and food writer, called “the Goldilocks of hot dogs: crisp skin, subtle spice, uniform texture, and juicy.”

For more options: Best Hot Dogs

These bratwursts are spectacular: juicy and garlicky, with a tiny bit of sweetness that’s balanced by a rich savoriness that places them firmly in the lunch or dinner category. (Despite that hint of sweetness, they don’t taste like your traditional breakfast sausage.) This sausage is “rich and aromatic, with notes of fennel and a deep umami flavor,” says Paul Hope, a CR food writer. “They clearly worked on this formula and it shows!”

For more options: Best Vegan Hot Dogs and Sausages

Miguel Leal is a big fan of Fly by Jing. The co-founder of Somos—a purveyor of ready-to-eat Mexican foods—recommends the Triple Threat gift set for home cooks who want to get creative in the kitchen. “It contains three products, one of which is the Sichuan Chili Crisp, which is a super-versatile sauce that I use on everything from eggs to dumplings and rice, and even on sushi,” Leal says. “It has a great level of spicy—but isn’t too spicy!—and I love the texture it adds to my food.”

This drink is hella intense. It’s a gorgeous ruby red, and the taste is like a rave in your mouth: vivid, overpowering, bitter, sweet. Like several other nonalcoholic cocktails we tried, it’s flavored with clove, allspice, and star anise, though this one has a heavy dose of sugar, making it one of the sweetest sparklers in the bunch. On its own, it’s a bit much. But mixed with alcohol, it works, though it does defeat the purpose of a nonalcoholic cocktail. Though we haven’t tried it ourselves, it’s possible this would be equally delicious with nonalcoholic bourbon or gin as with the real stuff. You could also just add sparkling water to tone things down.

For more options: Best Ready-to-Drink Mocktails

Our CR evaluators dubbed Cutwater’s Tequila Paloma “the party pick” in a recent evaluation of canned cocktails. It’s a mild—if faithful—version of a bar paloma that’s refreshing, lightly citrusy, and not unbearably sweet. It’s a great option for parties because the price is reasonable, it’s widely available, and it’s almost impossible not to like. This also means it won’t really stand out; you drink it to chill out and have fun with friends, not to contemplate the subtle hints of black pepper and agave from the brand’s proprietary tequila, which is used in this cocktail. Buy this instead of the hard seltzer you usually get for your house parties.

For more options: Best Canned Cocktails

Although a 2023 set, the LG OLED77C3PUA is a top-performing OLED that’s worth owning, and thanks to more than a year of price drops it’s a lower, though still not inexpensive, price. It aced our picture quality tests, has great sound, and very good HDR performance. We saw this set for about $100 less at Best Buy during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, but every other major retailer never sold it for under $2,000—Amazon and Walmart now list it at full retail value for around $1,800.

Unlike some other Onn TVs we’ve tested, which have done fairly well for overall picture quality, the 65-inch Onn 100012587 from Walmart’s private label brand does only okay in our tests and worse than that for HDR. Still, this is a very low price for a 4K set this size and might be an option for less finicky viewers on a tight budget. It’s a Roku TV, so it has access to a lot of streaming services. It matches the price we saw on Cyber Monday.

The TCL 55Q550F, which uses the Amazon Fire TV smart system, is an entry-level QLED TV from 2023 that does well for 4K picture quality in our tests, though not as well for HD or HDR performance. Right now we see this set, which has the Alexa voice assistant built in, only at Best Buy. Note that it’s now $20 more than on Cyber Monday.