Cooking for a Crowd

The secret to cooking for a crowd is all about planning and anticipating as well as creative substitutions. Whether you are hosting the family reunion, a holiday event or even a huge block party, the principles of planning are always going to be the same. It can be easy to pull off a huge meal with style and still have enough energy to mingle with guests too.

Your menu is probably the most important part of cooking for a crowd and will dictate the rest of the event. If possible, choose some dishes that can be made a few weeks in advance and frozen until the big day. This will greatly ease the stress of trying to make everything fresh the day of your event.

When you are searching for a main meat dish, look to your grill instead of your oven or stove top when cooking for a crowd. You could marinate your meat a day before hand and grill outdoors leaving your kitchen open for other food preparations. You could even borrow a grill or two from the neighbors if you need additional grilling space. In addition, you could look to a local catering place and order just the main dish to ease the burden of cooking for a crowd.

The same idea of consulting with a caterer or even a deli can be used for one or two side dishes. Coleslaw and potato salad are two popular side dishes that tend to be time intensive if homemade. Luckily, the deli section of your local grocery often has great prices for these sides. To make cooking for a crowd even easier, look to gourmet bagged salads and loaves of homemade bread to round out the meal.

For dessert options, look to your local bakeries for cakes, cookies and pies, especially if you don’t have the time nor not kitchen space to make them on your own. Call on a few close friends or family attending and ask them to bring a dessert or buy a variety of ice creams and toppings and have an ice cream sundae party after dinner.

When cooking for a crowd, the easiest way to serve the food is via a buffet line and either recruit some teenagers looking to earn a few buck to serve or have everyone help themselves. When having the event outdoors, set up picnic tables covered in inexpensive tablecloths or you could even rent tables and chairs for the day. For indoor dining, sometimes the dining table is not quite large enough to accommodate everyone. When cooking for a crowd, you might consider removing most of the furniture in your living room and setting up tables and chairs in there.

Keep in mind food safety as well when cooking. Have chafing dishes set up and use crockpots to keep food warm. For chilled food items, serve them in bowls nestled in bowls of crushed ice, especially if there are any items with mayonnaise in them. Unless this is a formal meal that requires the use of china and linens, use paper plates, napkins and plastic cups as they are perfect for easy clean-up when cooking for a crowd.

The bottom line is that you should have a game plan and schedule set in place so that all duties are covered and nothing is forgotten in the mass of people. Delegate duties whenever possible and utilize resources such as a caterer or bakery. Part of the fun of cooking for a crowd is being able to visit with each and every one of them and you cannot do that if you are tied to the kitchen.

Cooking for a crowd can be daunting, but with the right equipment and adequate preparation, you can pull it off. Whether you are cooking for as few as ten or as many as a hundred people, the key is to be safe, organized, and prepared.

Play It Safe

You should be aware of the health risks associated with cooking meals for a crowd. Hot food not only has to be cooked to a certain temperature, it has to remain at that temperature until it is served. Similarly, cold food has to be kept cold until you serve it. When food is improperly cooked or cooled, bacteria can grow and reproduce, sickening everyone who ate the tainted food.

What’s a cook to do? When you’re cooking for a crowd, use instant-read thermometers to monitor the temperatures of your large-scale dishes to make sure no one gets sick. If you’re cooking ahead for a crowd, and you need to cool, say, a large pot of soup or broth, ladle the hot liquid into several small containers so each container can cool more quickly, inhibiting bacteria from forming.

Quantities – Rule Of Ten

At large dinners and potlucks, it seems like there’s way too much food, or not enough food. Try to have just enough food by planning quantities carefully.

When you’re cooking for a crowd and you need to figure out whether to double, triple, or quadruple you recipe, follow the catering Rule of Ten. When cooking for a crowd of ten adults, serve:

Four pounds of meat

Three pounds of potatoes (to make potato salad)

One pound of dry pasta (to make pasta salad)

Two to three pounds of pre-cooked, peeled shrimp

Two pounds of clams or mussels

One-half gallon of soup or stew, if served as an appetizer

One gallon of soup or stew if served as a main dish

Two pounds green salad, or three large heads of lettuce

Three cups of salad dressing for all that salad.

Twenty cocktails per hour

One gallon of punch

If you are cooking for a crowd of ten that loves cocktails, remember to have on hand ten pounds of ice and a variety of soft drinks. A standard cocktail uses 1.5 ounces of liquor, so plan on getting 16 cocktails from each 750 ml bottle.

Cooking Supplies

Finding pans, bowls, and dishes when you’re cooking for a crowd can be a challenge. You can buy large, disposable foil baking pans, but they can be flimsy when loaded with hot, heavy food. Your best bet is to rent professional catering equipment, including large coolers, so you have all the supplies you need and you can concentrate on the food.

Stay Organized

Things can get pretty crazy when you’re cooking for a crowd, so make a list of every dish you’re serving and check the list frequently. You don’t want to have the party end and the guests go home only to find that you have six gallons of uneaten potato salad in the cooler because you forgot to serve it.