How Much Food Per Guest: Party Quantities for 25, 50 and 100

The question I hear most in the weeks before any party is not what to serve but how much of it. Hosts are afraid of two things: the platter that empties at seven o'clock while the line is still out the door, and the refrigerator crammed with three days of potato salad. Both can be avoided with a little arithmetic and a few honest questions about who is coming. What follows are the per-guest amounts I have leaned on for church suppers, reunions and backyard weddings, the reasons to move them up or down, and a worked table you can copy straight onto your shopping list.

These are planning numbers, not laws. Write them down, then adjust for your crowd.

Start with the event, not the menu

Before you count ounces, decide what kind of eating your guests will do. The same fifty people eat very differently at a two-hour open house than at a six o'clock dinner buffet.

• Cocktail party, no meal to follow (2 to 3 hours): 10 to 14 hors d'oeuvre pieces per guest. This replaces dinner, so count generously.
• Hors d'oeuvres before a meal (about 1 hour): 4 to 6 pieces per guest. Any more and people fill up before the main event.
• Lunch or luncheon: a little lighter than dinner. One main, one or two sides, salad, bread, a small dessert.
• Dinner buffet: the full count below. People serve themselves, and they serve themselves more than a plated dinner would give them.
• Brunch: eggs, a baked dish, fruit, bread and pastry. Count about 1 1/2 pastries or muffins per guest and 2 eggs per guest across all the egg dishes.
• Open house or drop-in (3 to 4 hours): guests come and go, so plan for about 70 to 75 percent of the invited list to be eating at any one time and for each of them to graze lightly.
• Dessert reception: 3 to 4 small pieces per guest, or 1 1/2 portions of cake or pie plus cookies.

Per-guest amounts by course

These are for a dinner buffet where everyone eats a full plate. I count by the cooked portion on the plate and then convert to what I buy.

Hors d'oeuvres before the meal

Four to six pieces per guest, three or four kinds. If you offer a dip with vegetables, figure about 2 tablespoons of dip and a scant cup of cut vegetables per person.

The main dish

About 6 ounces of cooked meat or fish per guest when there is one main. When you offer two mains, plan 4 ounces of each, because nearly everyone takes some of both. To buy:

• Boneless meat (pork loin, beef roast, chicken thighs): about 1/2 pound raw per guest, which cooks down to roughly 6 ounces.
• Bone-in meat (ham, whole chickens, bone-in turkey breast): 3/4 to 1 pound raw per guest.
• Fish fillets: 6 to 7 ounces raw per guest.
• Vegetarian main (lasagna, baked pasta, a big gratin): one 9-by-13 pan feeds 10 to 12 as a main, or 15 to 18 when there is also a meat main.

Starches and sides

Plan 4 to 5 ounces cooked per guest for each starch, and 3 to 4 ounces for each vegetable side. In practice that means about 1/3 pound raw potatoes per guest, or 2 ounces dry pasta or rice per guest as a side. With three or more sides on the table, cut each one back by about a quarter.

Salad

About 1 ounce of lettuce per guest (a loose, generous cup) and 1 1/2 tablespoons of dressing. A composed salad like a pasta salad or slaw runs about 1/2 cup per guest.

Bread

One and a half rolls per guest at dinner. Count a pound of butter for every 40 to 50 rolls.

Dessert

One and a quarter servings per guest when there are two or three choices, because people try more than one. A 9-inch pie cuts 8 pieces, a 9-by-13 sheet of bars cuts 24, and a two-layer 9-inch cake cuts 12 to 14.

Drinks

Plan on 2 drinks per guest in the first hour and 1 per hour after that, plus water for everyone. Coffee after dinner goes to about two thirds of an adult crowd.

The worked table: 25, 50 and 100 guests

This is the dinner buffet I plan most often: hors d'oeuvres for the first hour, one boneless main, a potato dish, a vegetable, a green salad, rolls and two desserts. The amounts are what to buy or make.

You will notice the 100 column is a little less than double the 50 column. That is on purpose. With a hundred people, the spread of big eaters and small eaters evens out, more guests are chatting instead of eating, and the line moves slowly enough that some people simply take less. I trim about 10 percent off straight multiplication once a party passes 75 guests. Below 25 I do the opposite and round up, because one hungry teenager can clear a small platter on his own.

If you are working from one of the sample menus, this table is the step that turns a menu into a grocery list.

Appetite factors that move the numbers

Two parties with the same guest count can eat wildly different amounts. These are the questions I ask before I settle on a final list.

Time of day

A noon lunch eats lighter than a seven o'clock dinner. A party that starts at five, right when people would be getting hungry, eats more than one that starts at two after everyone has had lunch. For an afternoon open house I cut the main dish by about a third and add to the sweets.

Length of the party

The longer people stay, the more they eat, but not in a straight line. The first hour is the hungriest. After that, figure each additional hour adds about a third of a light snack per guest: a few more hors d'oeuvres, a second trip to the dessert table, a late plate of leftovers for the people helping clean up.

Age mix

Young children eat about half an adult portion. Teenagers and college students, especially boys on a sports team, can eat one and a half adult portions of the main dish and twice the bread. Older guests tend to take smaller plates but almost always want coffee and dessert. Count heads by group and you will be much closer than a single total.

Alcohol

When there is an open bar or plenty of wine, people eat more of the salty and starchy things and stay longer at the hors d'oeuvres. Add a pan of something filling (a baked pasta, a platter of sliced bread and cheese) if the drinks are generous. A dry party often moves to dessert sooner.

The weather and the season

Hot July afternoons mean more salad, more fruit and less of the heavy main. A January supper after a day of shoveling means seconds on the stew and less interest in green salad. Midwinter parties, the kind we throw in the dark weeks after the holidays, eat the most of all.

Who is cooking

Homemade food goes faster than catered trays, in my experience. If you are using a drop-off caterer for part of the meal, the guide to food-only catering is worth reading for how they portion, since many caterers already build in a margin.

How to round and where to add a margin

I add a margin of about 10 percent to the main dish and the starch, and none to the salad or the vegetables. Running short on greens is not a disaster; running short on the main is. I would rather have an extra pan of potatoes in the oven than an extra bowl of salad wilting on the counter.

For hors d'oeuvres, make your total, then decide which one or two items could be stretched at the last minute: a bowl of olives, a block of cheese and a box of crackers, a dip that can be doubled from the pantry. That is your margin, and it costs almost nothing if it goes unused.

A few rounding rules I keep:

• Round rolls up to the dozen and desserts up to the whole pie or pan.
• Round meat to the size of what the store sells. If you need 13 pounds of pork loin and the loins come in 4-pound pieces, buy four.
• Count chairs and plates separately from food. Most buffets need about 1 1/2 plates per guest (one for dinner, one for dessert, and a few that get set down and abandoned).

A leftovers plan before the party starts

The best leftovers plan is the one you make on paper, not at eleven o'clock at night. Before the party:

1. Decide what you want back. Ham, roast meat and a pan of baked pasta make good second meals. Dressed salad does not. Keep a portion of the greens and dressing separate in the refrigerator so they can be added if needed and saved if not.
2. Set out containers and labels in the morning. Quart and pint containers, a roll of masking tape and a marker. Write the date on everything.
3. Pull food from the table on a schedule. Anything that has been out for two hours goes in the trash or, if it has been held hot or cold the whole time, into the refrigerator promptly. Food that has sat at room temperature longer than that is not leftover; it is gone.
4. Pack for guests deliberately. If you plan to send food home with family, buy a stack of inexpensive containers ahead of time and offer them before the last guests reach the door.
5. Freeze the main within a day. Sliced meat in its juices, portioned soup and baked pasta all freeze well for a month or two. Write the contents and date on the lid.

Questions from hosts

Should I plan for everyone who was invited?

Plan for everyone who said yes, plus about 5 percent. For an open invitation with no reply cards, like a church supper or a graduation open house, plan for about 75 percent of the invited list.

How many hors d'oeuvres if dinner is late?

If the meal will not be served until two hours into the party, treat the first part as a cocktail party and plan 8 to 10 pieces per guest, then trim the main dish slightly.

What if half the guests are vegetarian?

Make the vegetarian main a full main, not a side. Count every guest who eats it at full portion and still make the meat main at about two thirds of the usual amount, because some meat eaters will try both.

For more on menus that fit these numbers, the Menus and Planning pages have the counts worked out for specific parties. When I finish a list I tape it inside the cupboard door, cross off each item as it goes into the cart, and keep it after the party with a note on what actually came back.