Food for a Crowd Calculator

How it works

Each dish is the guest count times a portion per guest. Buffet service adds an allowance on top, because guests serve themselves; the allowance is an editable illustrative figure, not a published one.

Meat loses weight in cooking, and bone and trimmed fat are not served, so more raw meat is bought than is served. The USDA Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs measures how much cooked, servable meat a pound of each raw cut yields: 0.61 lb for a boneless beef round roast, 0.54 lb for a bone-in chuck roast, 0.75 lb for ground beef up to 15% fat. The raw meat to buy is the cooked meat served divided by that yield.

Following the Food Buying Guide's rule to round up when buying, the raw meat is also shown rounded up to the next quarter pound, and rolls are rounded up to whole rolls and dozens.

Formula

people = guests × (1 + buffet allowance %)   (plated: guests)
cooked meat (lb) = people × cooked portion (oz) ÷ 16
raw meat to buy (lb) = cooked meat ÷ cooked yield
each side (cups) = people × side portion;  salad = people × salad portion
rolls = people × rolls per guest, rounded up

Example

Fifty guests, plated, with 5 oz of cooked boneless beef round roast each: 250 oz is 15.63 lb cooked, and at the USDA yield of 0.61 that is 25.61 lb raw, or 25.75 lb rounded up.

Two sides at ½ cup each need 25 cups of each side; salad at 1 cup is 50 cups; 1½ rolls each is 75 rolls, or 7 dozen.

Assumptions and limitations

• Meat yields are from the USDA Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs, Section 1 Meats/Meat Alternates yield table (foodbuyingguide.fns.usda.gov, read October 2026), Column 6 "1 lb AP = … lb cooked": beef round roast without bone, 1/4-inch trim, 0.61; beef chuck roast practically-free-of-fat without bone 0.63, with bone 0.54; ground beef no more than 20% fat 0.74, no more than 15% fat 0.75; pork loin roast 1/4-inch trim without bone 0.58, with bone 0.48; pork shoulder Boston butt 1/4-inch trim without bone 0.60, with bone 0.52; chicken, boneless, with skin 0.70; chicken, whole, without neck and giblets, meat with skin 0.44; turkey, whole, without neck and giblets, with skin 0.53.
• Portions per guest are typical planning values, not published standards, and are editable; the buffet allowance is illustrative. Appetite varies with the guests, the time of day, how many other dishes are served and how long the event lasts.
• Sides and salad are measured as served, in US cups; the raw ingredients needed for them depend on the recipe.
• The Food Buying Guide's Example B rounds an exact 7.5 lb up to 7.75 lb; this calculator rounds up to the next quarter pound only when there is a remainder, so an exact 7.5 lb stays 7.5 lb.
• Safe cooking temperatures and how long food can stay out on a buffet are not covered here; USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service guidance applies.

Frequently asked questions