Feeding a Crowd: How Much Food Per Person, Solved
Every host oscillates between two fears: running out of food (social catastrophe) and cooking for forty when twelve came (a week of leftovers). The chart below ends the oscillation — it is the math caterers use, translated to home scale.
The per-person chart
| Item | Per adult | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Main protein | 6 oz cooked | 8 oz if it is the only main |
| Pasta / casserole main | 1½ cups | A creamy pasta pan of 12 cups feeds 8 |
| Starch side | ¾ cup | Halve when two starches compete |
| Vegetable side | ½ cup | The honest number, not the hopeful one |
| Tacos | 3 per person | A baked tray of 12 = 4 guests |
| Dessert | 1.5 servings | Nobody takes one cookie |
| Drinks | 1.5 per hour | First hour counts double |
The three multipliers
Buffets inflate consumption 15–20% — self-serving hands are generous hands. Kids count as 0.6 adults for mains and 1.5 adults for desserts; budget accordingly. Crowd-pleaser dishes disappear faster than the math says — a honey chicken mac will be gone while the vegetable tray survives untouched, so over-index on the obvious favorite by half a batch.
Golden rule: compute, then add 15%. Leftovers in containers make you a legend; an empty table at 7:40 makes a story you will hear retold for years. Event-specific versions: Friendsgiving and New Year's Eve.
