Instacart Just Revealed Its Most Popular Super Bowl Snack, and I'm Underwhelmed

I used to work as a cashier at Whole Foods. It was a pretty straightforward job, except for the time a customer threw a bag of quinoa at my head (she was upset that it was more expensive than the quinoa at Trader Joe’s). There's only one other moment from my cashier days that I remember vividly.

On a fateful Super Bowl Sunday, we ran out of an essential snack food. Every flavor from every brand was gone—the shelves were empty. People were having full-on meltdowns in the aisles, frantically calling friends and family members to run out to Mariano’s or Walmart.

I wasn't surprised to hear that this particular food is the most popular Super Bowl snack in the United States. But I was underwhelmed.

What's the Most Popular Super Bowl Snack?

It’s tortilla chips, per Instacart's data. I witnessed the chaos of that particular Super Bowl Sunday, so the result is definitely not surprising. But there’s nothing particularly exciting about tortilla chips. They’re only made interesting by whatever dips you pair them with—and, funnily enough, the dips came in fourth place (salsa) and ninth place (queso).

I don’t even necessarily think of tortilla chips as a snack on their own. Part of what makes them so popular on game day is that they make great nachos. If I showed up to someone’s house for a Super Bowl party and only had a bag of tortilla chips, I would feel like I came empty-handed. I would at least need some dips.

Fortunately, I was able to find some other gems in the Instacart data.

The Most Popular Pairing for Buffalo Wings

The ongoing "ranch or blue cheese" debate may have finally come to a close. Instacart says that ranch dressing is the third most popular overall snack—blue cheese dressing doesn’t even make the list. Additionally, when looking at what customers add to Instacart orders in conjunction with Buffalo sauce, they found that the number one most paired item is…drumroll please…ranch! And blue cheese is ranked fifth, after barbecue sauce.

There also seems to be a pretty regional divide in terms of what people love to snack on. The South loves processed cheeses like Velveeta, the Midwest goes for chicken wings, and California and Arizona love French onion dip. Hawaii is the only state where sour cream is ranked in first place, so I guess I need to move to Hawaii.

The Most Popular Super Bowl Drinks

It’s obvious that beer and football go hand-in-hand. The Instacart data backs that up, with the top beer of choice for the Super Bowl as Mexican-style lagers. I just stocked up on Modelo, so anecdotally, this tracks! But the second-place alcohol of choice isn’t even beer—it’s prosecco. I didn’t realize how early the mimosa crowd started prepping for the Big Game, but hey, I’ll drink to that.