Enough for everyone, without a week of leftovers
Planning food for a crowd is mostly guesswork for home hosts. Caterers rely on rules of thumb per guest, adjusted for the type of event, its length and the guests. This calculator applies those rules and adds a safety margin.
The rules used
Guests: each child counts as half an adult. A safety margin, 10% by default, is then added.
Appetizers:
- Before a meal: about 5 pieces per guest.
- Appetizers only: about 8 pieces per guest in the first hour and 4 for each hour after.
For a meal:
- Main dish: about 1/2 lb (225 g) of raw boneless meat or fish per adult.
- Sides: about 10 oz (280 g) of cooked side dishes in total per adult, for example three sides of about 3 oz.
- Salad: about 1.5 oz (40 g) of greens per adult.
- Bread: 1.5 rolls per adult.
- Dessert: about 1.2 servings per guest, since some will have seconds.
Worked example
A buffet dinner for 20 adults and 6 children, lasting 3 hours, with a 10% margin:
- Adult equivalents: (20 + 3) × 1.1 = 25.3.
- Appetizers before the meal: 127 pieces.
- Meat or fish: 12.7 lb raw boneless, for example 7 lb of chicken thighs and 6 lb of salmon.
- Sides: about 15.6 lb in total.
- Salad greens: about 2.2 lb.
- 38 rolls and 31 dessert servings.
Adjusting the amounts
- More food: long parties, teenagers and athletes, cold weather, late dinners, or a buffet where guests serve themselves.
- Less food: an afternoon event between meals, many vegetarians for the meat line, older guests, or a party after a ceremony with a cocktail hour.
- Bone-in meat: plan 3/4 to 1 lb per person; a whole turkey, about 1 lb per person, or 1 1/2 lb if you want leftovers.
- Several mains: when offering two, plan a little more than half of each, as many guests take both.
- Popular items disappear first; make more of the dishes you know your guests love.
Food safety for buffets
- Keep hot foods at 140 °F or above and cold foods at 40 °F or below.
- Discard perishable food left out more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90 °F.
- Put out food in smaller batches and replace platters rather than topping them up.
- Cool leftovers quickly in shallow containers and refrigerate within 2 hours.
For drinks, use the party drinks calculator, and to make the recipes for a crowd, the recipe scaling calculator.