Hosting a big party or event and you are not sure where to start with the food? I have been there, but now I plan the food for events big and small at our church several times a month and I have learned some tricks to share with you! We will start with some details to decide before we get to the actual plan. These are all just guidelines to help you think through options. If I am serving a meal, I want the people enjoying it to know I thought about them when I prepared it lovingly for them. That means small details like making accommodations for kids, health conscious people, and food allergies does matter to me (and them!)

Preparation

WHO

Know who you are feeding! Adults, kids, both? Are they young trendy professionals who love exploring new taste flavors or are they 3 year olds who only eat chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese? Also, how many are you feeding? This will be your starting off point!

WHEN

The time of day you are serving a meal will obviously come into play when deciding a menu. A lunch meal could be simpler and lighter than a dinner meal. I serve dinner every Wednesday night at our mid-week church event and they just don’t like cold lunchmeat sandwiches for dinner! Even if you are planning something mid-afternoon, depending on how long it is, you may still serve a light snack or appetizer before dinner.

HOW

Is this going to be a boxed lunch, a buffet, a family style, or sit down served meal? Will it be a potluck or are you providing the whole meal? Will you order catering for all or part of the meal? If you are making the food, can anything be made ahead of time? That is your next decision to make!

THEME

Is there going to be any sort of theme with the meal? A theme would go along with the event as a whole. Some examples would be:

• Adding in graduation elements for a graduation party
• Keeping to a color scheme for a baby shower
• Choosing and naming dishes to enhance the birthday party decor, like a “hot on the trail” mix for a detective/spy themed birthday party.
• Religious or cultural holidays may have their own traditional items to enhance the celebration

FOOD ALLERGIES/DIETARY RESTRICTIONS

If you are able to find out your guests specific food allergies and dietary restrictions up front, it is easier to start the plan with that in mind. If that is not an option, then I like to keep in mind the top food allergy and dietary restrictions when planning the menu. With some careful planning, the main items can be adjusted to meet some of those requirements without adding more dishes. When serving kids with unknown food allergies, I make sure all main food is always peanut free and will select a specific peanut/tree nut free dessert alternative. Check labels closely for “made in a facility that processes nuts/tree nuts”.

Grab your FREE EVENT MENU PLANNING WORKSHEET printable here

Creating the Menu

WHAT

Now that we have figured out all the details, it is time to start planning the menu for the event. I start from this basic list and then refine from there based on all the other details:

• White meat option, fried for kids, grilled chicken if serving health conscious adults
• Red meat option (In addition if the group is 20+ people)
• Vegetarian option
• Salad and/or vegetable
• Gluten Free Option
• Dairy Free alternative (leave dairy on the side, if possible)
• Beverages
• Dessert
• Appetizer (if needed)

I know that is just a list of kinds of things, but everything is dependent on what you prepared in the planning session, what your event is, and what food you like! But to keep going, I will provide more information to help you decide those things too.

CATERING

Where I live, I have lots of catering options from restaurants and grocery stores. I also have access to stores that offer larger dishes in bulk that come frozen and you put in the oven to heat and serve. If you are unsure of the options in your area, start by looking at websites for their catering menu. Most that have robust catering options will have a separate menu to review. When you call to talk to a person, be sure to ask about recommendations, most ordered items, and gluten free/dairy free options if they are not obvious.

CATERING ALTERNATIVE EXAMPLES:

Don’t be afraid to mix and match too - cater some things and make some things!

Make your own Salad: I find that ordering salad without meat from catering is expensive compared to making your own. I recently served a group of 100 people a pasta dinner. The salad add-on for the meal from the restaurant would have been $250, so I opted to make my own and made three large trays of salad for $50. We had a lot leftover too (so I probably could have made less, but I also don’t like to run out). This is exactly what I purchased from Aldi:

• 3 large spring mix boxes of prewashed greens
• 6 romaine lettuce hearts to chop and mix in (2 hearts for each box of greens)
• 6 cucumbers (2 each salad)
• 6 bell peppers (2 each salad)
• 1 broccoli head and 1 cauliflower head (split between all)
• 6 cherry tomato clamshells (2 per each)
• Salad dressing options on the side

This way I could control exactly what is in the salad, so I knew that it would be good for all my food allergies and dietary restrictions at the meal. When I am serving salad for a group of 10-20 people, I usually get premade bag salads that include the dressing and fun toppings.

Grocery Store: Grocery stores have a lot of food in them. That is their whole business! Acquaint yourself with what they offer for catering. My local stores do cold and hot catering. Plus if you are serving smaller amounts of people, sometimes a couple “family size” items will serve enough. When serving a small group of (up to 10) people lunch, I may do premade quiche (pop in the oven), bag salad, and soup from the grocery store.

Bulk Stores: We have a restaurant supply store that sells to the public in our area called Gordon Food Service. I love their pulled BBQ pork! Cost wise it is almost exactly the same as getting the meat and making it yourself. Each tray serves 12 people. Just pop it in the oven to heat while you do other things! The most I have served with this method is 48 people (4 trays) with a team helping plate the sandwiches. This would also be great to put in a crock-pot for self-serving on a buffet line.

This store also has a variety of other premade items, so if you have one in your area it is worth checking out to see what they have. I order several frozen desserts there (thaw and serve) and people ask if they are homemade! Costco is another option, but I have found them to not be as consistent in what they offer.

Dietary Restrictions: We have a local restaurant chain that has a pomodoro chicken on their catering menu. This is a flavorful chicken dish that is gluten and dairy free! Triple win! I will serve this on occasions when I don’t know how many gluten and dairy free people may be in attendance without having to provide something separate for them. Check in with any local restaurants to see if they have something that will work similarly for you.

Gluten and Dairy Free Desserts: There are desserts that are gluten free and desserts that are dairy free, but both is harder to find. I have two fall back options (homemade) when I need to serve a gluten and dairy free dessert. Chia pudding made with non-dairy milk (I use unsweetened almond milk) and a rice pudding made with coconut milk. The chia pudding is fast to whip up a small portion and the rice pudding can easily be doubled to make many servings. It all depends on how much is needed. Obviously both of these you would need to make sure they don’t have a tree nut allergy or use oatmilk in the chia pudding. If you are regularly searching for something, I recommend figuring out a couple options like this to be able to use when you need it.

TOP 9 ALLERGIES

There are some products out now that are Top 9 allergy free (milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, crustacean shellfish, wheat, soybeans, and sesame). Sweet Loren’s is one that is pretty accessible, but there are more if you look hard and get really good at reading ingredient lists. If you have to accommodate multiple food allergies and dietary restrictions, look at these for your dessert. Not sponsored, just have used them with success. I prepare lunch for counselors that run a day camp at our church every summer and this summer I had a person attend with several very specific food allergies. She was so excited that I found cookies to bake for her. It wasn’t any harder than picking up any other pre-made cookie that you put in the oven. These options are usually much more expensive, so I get them only for those that need it and label it specifically for food allergies.

Final Details

HOW MUCH TO ORDER

Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic number for every option. If you cater things often, you will learn a restaurant's quantity when purchasing per person to know if it is accurate. I know from experience that when I order Mexican food, they always send way more rice and beans than the people I am serving enjoy eating. Some restaurants' serving sizes are fairly accurate though. The pomodoro chicken option I noted above has a perfect serving size. Once I doubted them and ordered an extra half tray because it was my only main entree and it was untouched. These types of things you only learn from experience. If you only order occasionally, use the restaurant's guide or ask them questions when ordering.

HOW MUCH TO MAKE

If you are making the food, I look for serving quantities online and use that as a starting point. Let's say you were serving ground beef tacos and you looked up online that one pound (16 oz) of ground beef serves 3 people with lots of sides or 2 per pound if that is the only main dish or extremely hungry eaters. For my son’s birthday, we had 6 teenage boys plus the 3 other family members and I made 4 pounds of taco meat. That was meant to serve 12 and we definitely had leftovers to use for lunch that week (which was ok)! Other quantities I have searched online: rice per person, pasta per person, spaghetti sauce per person, BBQ per person, hamburgers and hot dogs per person. Once you figure out what you are serving, you can use these guides to determine how much to make and adjust the quantities based on your other details.

WHAT ELSE ARE YOU HAVING

When setting up a buffet with options, this will also play into how much you need for the main dish. Think about all the sides that go with a Thanksgiving dinner. With all that, how much turkey do you eat? I know I like to have a little of everything, so that means just a little turkey. But if we have just turkey and a vegetable for dinner at home, I would eat a full portion of turkey. Will you have more than one main dish? If so, that plays into the quantities as well.

So now that you have all the guidelines, grab this printable food planninng sheet for groups to write down all of your details. Just work through each step and soon you will feel confident in your large group meal planning skills!

Grab your FREE EVENT MENU PLANNING WORKSHEET PRINTABLE HERE

If you want more great ideas on how to plan and host great events, check out my Event Planning Course!

Don’t you love this ad free website with no annoying pop ups every five seconds? Find out more about that HERE.