Recipes to feed 30 people?

mlinci
mlinci Posts: 402 Member
in Recipes
Hi all,
I’m organising a weekend away for a group of friends through a shared hobby. We’ve hired a large house, with a massive kitchen. We are all going to take part cooking and washing up. Roughly a quarter of attendees is vegetarian.

Does anyone have any good recipes for feeding a crowd? I’d be grateful for recipes or links.

Does anyone have any good advice on what to watch out for when scaling up recipes?

Replies

  • amelisegb
    amelisegb Posts: 58 Member
    Hi there, the below is what worked for me when I was acting cook for a group of ~15-20 people on a week-long trip. I hope you can scale up to do the same! In my situation we had access to a grill, so that will be featured below.

    Tips - have several large skillet/frying pans, soup pots, and 2 baking sheets at least. Use both skillets at the same time on different burners, and expect the group will have to eat in "waves". Lots of eggs, butter, and bread! Might want to get sandwich baggies/bring a cooler if lunching on the go.

    Breakfasts - I would do a combo of the following, depending on what people wanted:
    • Scrambled eggs w/ add ins - Easy to make large portions of scrambled eggs with spinach & tomato & cheese, (choose your own veggies) and can make with sausage for the non-vegetarians. You can make a loaf of bread into toast (butter each side of bread, put in skillet, then flip is faster than toaster).
    • Pancakes - can make a couple boxes for pretty cheap, can add choc chips/blueberries to different batches. make sure you have enough syrup/butter/jam to go around!
    • Oatmeal - can make a big batch of plain oatmeal, then have bowls of fruit/peanut butter/chocolate/ milk for people to add in as they like.
    • Bagels/cream cheese, cereal/milk - we had a few of these available that people could grab if they didn't want the main dish

    Lunches -
    • Sandwiches - This worked great for us! Get an assembly line going - we bought cheese, a variety of lunch meats, and pickles (my fave veggie sandwich is cheese, mustard, and pickles lol) plus peanut butter and jelly. We took our lunches on the go, so threw these and big chips/pretzel bags in the cooler.
    • Tacos - another 'assembly line' style meal - buy a bunch of tortillas, get cheese, salsa, make some chicken/pork (optional), avocado, black olives, lettuce, etc and put in bowls, then let everyone make their own
    • Potato salad/pasta salad/chips & salsa/cut up fruit etc as side dishes

    Dinners -
    • Barbecue - Shrimp, fish, chicken, whatever! as the main, with potato salad or regular salad on the side
    • Burgers - again we made on the grill - assembly line style with toppings! Tomato, katsup, mustard, cheese, onion, pickles, etc. Buy in bulk patties and buns. I like the sunshine burgers brand for veggie burgers.
    • Pasta! - the easiest bulk meal ever. Put a couple boxes in a big pot, get enough marinara sauce to cover, top with parmesean.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,956 Member
    I have family reunions where different family groups cook on different days to feed a crowd of about your size. Definitely split the group to be responsible for meal prep on different days. You might suggest each group splitting themselves up as the shopping crew, cooking crew, and clean up crew.

    Have a good look at the equipment available as there is no point doing pasta for 30 if you don't have the required cooking vessels. Things done in a large oven or on a BBQ scale up fairly easily as you are not limited by cooking vessel sizes. If you have large-ish cooking groups cooking consider doing a lot of different sides to bulk up the meal.

    For an oven based meal, roast vegetables (courgettes, cauliflower, squash, carrots) mixed with cooked lentils and vinaigrette with a sprinkle of feta or capers for everyone including the vegetarians. In a large oven you could probably fit 4-6 spatchcock chickens or a big leg of lamb for the non vegetarians. Mac and cheese made from scratch and grilled with breadcrumbs and a sprinkle of cheese would be a good starchy side. Or baked potatoes (start them in them 8 minutes in microwave so they only need 20 minutes in the oven) is easy to scale up where you can provide veggie fillings like baked beans or cheese. Apple crumble is an easy desert to scale up in large oven trays.

    For a BBQ based meal, the tricky part will be feeding the vegetarians. Start with some veggies like grilled radiccio or baby gem lettuces drizzled first with olive oil and served with balsamic. That way people get something to eat right away. For the veggies make sure you grill lots of veg like aubergine, courgette, portabello mushrooms and asparagus tossed in olive oil. Also halloumi cheese, corn (mexican with mayo and grated cheese or cambodian with coconut milk, soy and green onions). For a BBQ I would use bread or make ahead potato salad as the starchy side. You could BBQ bananas to drench in nutella as a dessert or toast marshmallows.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,956 Member
    An easy way to feed a big group is lasagna's made in advance by volunteers. These can be frozen and baked on the day you want to eat. My template recipe is here, but I would just buy a meat based sauce instead of doing it from scratch for a large group.

    https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/mary_berrys_lasagne_al_16923

    For the vegetarians make vegetable lasangas as follows. Sautee veg such as grated courgette, carrot or spinach with garlic. Mix with a few tubs of cottage cheese. Use this as a replacement for the bolognese sauce in above recipe.

    The cooking group would need to produce a variety of salads to accompany lasagnas. Tomato salad, cucumber salad, green salad.
  • ValeriePlz
    ValeriePlz Posts: 517 Member
    Check out Barefoot Contessa Family-Style from your local library. There are some great recipes in there, and they are built for a crowd.
  • amgreenwell
    amgreenwell Posts: 1,267 Member
    Casseroles are going to be your friend. I usually make some sort of brunch items when feeding vegetarians.
    Egg casseroles and potato casseroles are EASY to make, with whatever ingredients you want and they can be made in large portions, put in the fridge and baked when needed.
  • dechowj
    dechowj Posts: 148 Member
    I would say those huge silver disposable tins for casseroles and maybe crock pots would help. I would also prep as much as possible at home and put things in gallon sized zip lock bags to just cook up later.

    For Breakfast you could do a crock pot of overnight oatmeal (that way it is ready if anyone is an early bird.):
    https://www.theyummylife.com/Slow_Cooker_Apple_Cinnamon_Oatmeal
    And then in a big baking pan you could do a breakfast casseroles. I would make huge batches and have the tins set up ahead of time so all you need to do is bake them:
    https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a57263/everything-bagel-casserole-recipe/
    or
    https://melaniemakes.com/blog/2014/12/banana-chocolate-chip-fluffernutter-french-casserole.html
    Make a bunch of pancake mix and bake it in a well greased sheet pan. that way you can just cut them into squares and serve a bunch at a time. Then on the stove top you could do big batches of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon or sausage.

    For lunch, salads (pasta, mac, potato, garden) will go a long way. Then serve turkey dogs, hamburgers, and veggie burgers or crock pot pulled pork.I'm a big fan of cheeseburger pasta salad and I use whole wheat pasta(can't tell the difference). I leave out the bacon and bacon grease:
    https://www.lynnskitchenadventures.com/2017/05/bacon-cheeseburger-pasta-salad.html

    For Dinners, big pan of lasagna or baked Ziti are very filling. One can be loaded with meat while the other has only vegetables in it.
    Load a pan with chicken breast, cover with jars of pesto sauce and bake. (top with Moz cheese for last 10 mins in the oven). Then serve with rice, maybe cooked in a crock pot.
    Or have a soup night.
    https://mywholefoodlife.com/2014/09/16/slow-cooker-ratatouille-soup/
    Or
    https://damndelicious.net/2017/12/16/slow-cooker-loaded-potato-soup/

  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
    When making a salad: chop up and place all the ingredients in a garbage bag, shake the bag up then place the salad into large bowls.

    Crock-Pot soups are also a great idea, a vat of vegetable soup and crackers on the side is super easy to make.
  • Becka77
    Becka77 Posts: 284 Member
    Breakfast casseroles. You can prep them the night before and just toss in the oven in the morning. I prefer the ones with eggs, hash browns, meat and cheese but there are also french toast casseroles, I add berries to it to make it a little healthier. You can find different recipes on pinterest.

    Dinner, throw a couple large roasts with veggies in a crockpot. Shred the meat to make sandwiches, sliders, tacos, etc.
  • sytchequeen
    sytchequeen Posts: 526 Member
    top tip... when scaling up a recipe be careful with spices.

    for example, if a curry for 4 uses a table spoon of chilli powder, do NOT use 3 tablespoons of chilli powder in a curry for 12. It's usually best to use a little more, then taste to see how it's going.
  • 100_PROOF_
    100_PROOF_ Posts: 1,168 Member
    I would make a big batch of rice and beans. Vegetarian guests and meat eating guests can both enjoy it.
    It's easy to make and tasty.

    Pasta would be another good one.

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