Is there a better summer outing than a trip to the state fair? Don’t bother screaming an answer at your computer, because we can’t hear you and you’re wrong if you disagree. What better place is there to people watch, ride rickety roller coasters, and eat pounds of insane food that you can’t get anywhere else?!
Our favorite part about spending all day at a fair is definitely the wacky food that doesn’t exist anywhere else in polite society. Insane creations like pickle dogs (for the uninitiated, that’s a deep fried pickle with a hotdog inside), and literally deep fried anything are waiting around every corner for your feasting pleasure. If you’ve never been to a state fair before, you can make the rookie mistake of buying the wrong food and getting stuck with garbage instead of something tasty. That’s why we’ve put this list of the best fair food together. You can thank us later.
With so many state fair food options, it can be tough to choose exactly which artery-clogging delicacy to try. That’s why we’ve created the perfect menu for your state fair feasting pleasure. Some of the items on this list might seem a little weird, but roll with it. Your taste buds will thank you. Vote on which fair food you think is the best, and let us know which one of these monstrosities you’ve feasted upon. And if there’s anything we left off, you better give us the deets!
Our favorite part about spending all day at a fair is definitely the wacky food that doesn’t exist anywhere else in polite society. Insane creations like pickle dogs (for the uninitiated, that’s a deep fried pickle with a hotdog inside), and literally deep fried anything are waiting around every corner for your feasting pleasure. If you’ve never been to a state fair before, you can make the rookie mistake of buying the wrong food and getting stuck with garbage instead of something tasty. That’s why we’ve put this list of the best fair food together. You can thank us later.
With so many state fair food options, it can be tough to choose exactly which artery-clogging delicacy to try. That’s why we’ve created the perfect menu for your state fair feasting pleasure. Some of the items on this list might seem a little weird, but roll with it. Your taste buds will thank you. Vote on which fair food you think is the best, and let us know which one of these monstrosities you’ve feasted upon. And if there’s anything we left off, you better give us the deets!
Funnel cake might be our favorite food of all time. The only reason we don’t eat it every day is because we’d turn into a hybrid of fried dough and human, and we couldn’t get any work done if we were gnawing at our doughy fingers all day. Seriously guys, the fried dough, powdered sugar combo is the perfect fair food. You can munch on it all day, or if you’re feeling like champ, you can share it with your sweetie.
Hot Toasted Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich
A giant sized scoop of vanilla ice cream between two waffles and covered with powdered sugar? Make sure you bring some friends to help you polish this off or you’ll never wake up from that sugar crash.
The Classic Corn Dog
You can’t go wrong with a deep-fried corn-battered hot dog – it’s not humanly possible. Slather it in mustard, dip it in ketchup, we don’t care what you do as long as you eat it.
Beer Battered Cheese Curds
We know there’s a lot of drama in the underground cheese curd world, but we don’t care if these beauties squeak or not. As long as they’re deep fried and going into our mouths.
Fried Mac and Cheese
It’s like being a kid all over again! Except instead of eating mac and cheese out of that beautiful blue box, you’re chomping down on a piece of fried dough filled with liquid gold.
Fried Pickles
It might be a lot to walk around with, but there’s nothing like dunking a slice of fried pickle into a cool tub of ranch to really make you feel like an American.
Deep Fried Cookie Dough
We’ve been known to mix up a batch of cookie dough just to eat it out of the bowl, so it really shouldn’t come as a shock that we’re all about this a crispy, warm, gooey cookie dough covered in chocolate sauce.
Deep Fried Mashed Potatoes an a Stick
We’ll pretty much eat any iteration of potato that you put in front of us. So it’s a no brainer that we need to experience the artery clogging beer-battered and fried bacon-cheddar mashed potatoes at the Tulsa State Fair.
We know you think you’ve had a Frito pie, but you’ve never truly lived until you’ve walked around a mass of sweaty people gawking at t-shirt vendors eating a Frito pie straight out of the bag. We don’t know why it tastes better… it just does.
Bacon Wrapped Corn
WHAT?! Excuse us if the rest of the words that we type don’t make any sense but our brains and taste buds have been taken over by the thought of bacon, grilled corn, and chili powder.
Turkey Legs
Call us monsters if you want, but we like to munch on a couple of turkey legs a year. Some people go to state fairs just to eat turkey legs, so watch who you’re talking to or you might catch a piece of roasted meat upside your head.
PB&J French Toast
There’s no way for you to eat this childhood dream without becoming a sticky-faced mess. If you want to give it a try, we wish you the best of luck.
Naked Shrimp, Rice, and Pineapple Bowl
Hold up, something that isn’t deep fried at a state fair? Guess we have to try it for the sake of our heart.
Deep Fried Samoas
Arguably the best Girl Scout cookie ever baked. Strap in for a full blown diabetic coma after you eat a few of these sugary monsters.
Deep Fried Chicken Skins
We shouldn’t be so into the idea of eating fried skin, but OMGITSOUNDSSOGOOD! Imagine if you combined these fried skins with mashed potatoes or even potato salad! Sorry…we have to take a moment.
Deep Fried Breakfast on a Stick
You know breakfast is our favorite meal of the day, so of course we’re having the meat sweats over this Minnesota State Fair delight. Is that sausage and ham? We better start running laps.
Rustic Stuffed Scone
A scone seems kind of fancy for fair food. But despite making us feel like total snobs, it does look like the best ham and cheese sandwich ever.
Deep Fried Pecan Pie on a Stick
Real talk: Chocolate pecan pie is our favorite dessert ever, but this Orange County Fair exclusive might be making it’s way into the number two spot this summer.
Bacon Covered Cinnamon Rolls
What goes together better than bacon and cinnamon rolls? It’s like putting together two of our most favorite breakfast foods into one. Some vendors sprinkle bacon over the cinnamon roll, others wrap the bacon inside. Which would you prefer?
Fat Elvis on a Stick
Take peanut butter, chocolate, and bacon, combine them with banana batter, and you have a deep fried concoction known as The Fat Elvis On a Stick. We don’t know what to do. Should we keep writing this list or run to the Wisconsin State Fair to eat as many of these as we can before the summer ends?
Fried Picnic on a Stick
Only at the Texas State Fair would you find someone kooky enough to deep fry alternating chunks of fried chicken, pickles and tator tots. This sounds like someone accidentally knocked random ingredients into a frier, but we don’t care… we want it.
Drunken Pickle Poppers
It’s like if pickles and jalapeño poppers had a baby. Fried pickles stuffed with cream cheese & jalapeños. Come on, it’s like the state fair circuit is trying to fatten us up so they can eat us.
Deep Fried Dortios
Doritos covered in batter, then deep-fried. Somehow they get lighter and flakier in the process. If you see anyone eating these without the required ranch dressing dipping sauce, you have our permission to confiscate their snacks.
Krispy Kreme Hamburgers
The doughnut burger at the Alabama State Fair features a quarter-pound hamburger, bacon, cheese, and two glazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts in place of a single bun. The monstrosity contains nearly 1,100 calories and 67 grams of fat, but who wants to live past 35 anyway?
Pickle Dog: A Corn Dog with a Pickle Inside
You maniacs! You finally did it! You hollowed out a pickle, stuck a hot dog through it, and then battered and fried the whole thing! TAKE OUR MONEY ALREADY!
Chili Relleno Chorizo Cheeseburger on a Pretzel Burger
A chili releno, chipotle mayo, cheddar cheese, regular hamburger patty, chorizo burger patty, all on a pretzel bun. It’ll run you about 16 bucks at the Orange County State Fair, but it looks worth it.
Tasti Chips with Nacho Cheese and Jalapeños
This delightfully simple snack isn’t extravagant, it’s just a fantastically accurate baked potato chip with nacho cheese and jalapeños. There’s nothing we love more than nuclear yellow nacho cheese.
Reindeer Sausage
Alaska’s State Fair celebrates the sunny season with grilled local reindeer sausages and a giant cabbage contest. The current record of 139 pounds was set in 2012. Uhhh…we’ll stick to the sausage.
Deep Fried Goo Goo Clusters
Goo Goo Clusters are kind of our dirty little secret. We love the marshmallow, caramel, peanut, and chocolate diabetes machines – and now that we know you can get them deep fried in Tennessee, we’re thinking of going country.
Chocolate Dessert Salami
Normally we don’t condone foods that are trying to look like other foods, but we’ll give this chocolate, butter, almond, and walnut roll a shot…for science.
Deep Fried Egg on a Stick
We don’t know why this appeals to us so much, maybe we’re secretly trailer folk. Or maybe we’re just monsters to the core, but the Arkansas State Fair offers a simple hard-boiled egg, dunked in batter and oil, fried, and served with a selection of dipping sauces like jalapeño-ranch and sweet-and-sour.
Deep Fried Sugar Cubes
Hey we did it! We invented edible diabetes!
Grilled Python Kabobs
We’re not prone to eating extra weird food, but the next time we’re at the California Exposition & State Fair, we’re going to try a python kabob just to preempt any “tastes like chicken” jokes.
Scrapple might not look like much, the deep fried loaf is made from the scraps of leftover pork combined with cornmeal, flour, and spices. It certainly lacks the panache of a deep fried bubblegum, but if you’ve ever eaten Scrapple you’ll understand the true majesty that accompanies eating fried and seasoned leftovers.
Fried Pig Ears
Pig ears are delicious, and we’re very sorry that makes you feel weird, but we’ve tasted heaven and now we can’t go back (like Buffy at the beginning of season 6). Now that we know fried pig ears with a chipotle glaze exists at the Minnesota State Fair, we’ll probably be cashing in our frequent flier miles come fair season.