Expert: Teri Davis Newman - 6/19/2009

Question
i am having a grad party and fixing all the food myself. there will be about 120-150 people coming. I am fixing barbecued chicken, barbecued hamburgers, hamburgers, hot dogs macaroni salad, potato salad, pasta, salt potatoes and veggie tray my question is how much of everything should i fix my biggest concern is how much chicken and barbecued hamburgers thank you in advance

Answer
This is a two part answer, the first part is the quantities. You need to cut back on your menu items in a big way because if you don't, you are going to have tons of leftovers and waste.  Here's the rule of catering as to how much you will need per person:
7 ounces of cooked meat entree
4 ounces of each side dish up to 3
3 ounces of salad greens
1 4 ounce dessert serving
6-8 appetizer bites per person
16 oz of non-alcoholic beverage
2 oz of chips per person
1 oz of dip per person
Multiply the ounces times the number of guests and then divide by 16 to give you pounds of food and the beverage by 128 to give you the number of gallons of beverage you will need.
Now, here's the part you aren't going to want to hear:
It is impossible for you to have a party of this size and do all the cooking yourself at your home because unless you have commercial facilities or are going to call a catering company to come and help you.  Let me give you a few things to consider because I know you haven't realized the magnitude of what you are thinking of doing and it is not possible for you to have a party of this size outside of a commercial venue.  I know you aren't using a commercial venue because they DO NOT ALLOW food to come in from an unlicensed kitchen and the reason for that is to prevent food poisoning. The average home refrigerator does not have enough space to store the food you will need for this party which means you are risking food poisoning. Where do you think you are going to find parking for all the cars?  Do you think you can cook food and have it ready for all these people?  You can't fit macaroni salad for 150 in your fridge let alone all the OTHER FOOD!! You are talking about nearly 200 POUNDS of salads ALONE, THEN YOU CAN FIGURE ANOTHER SEVENTY FIVE POUNDS OF MEAT.  Where are you going to store this?  A RESTAURANT would have a hard time feeding 150 people that came in all at once and you are not going to be able to do this by yourself. You are taking about THREE ENTREES and have NO IDEA who will be eating what--this is why at wedding receptions they have a "chicken or beef" card in the RSVP.
Ditto for the salads--you are doing wayyyyyy too much food.  You need to choose ONE meat, 2 side dishes, 2 snacks/appetizers and ONE dessert preferably a cake--and you will need TWO full sheet cakes for a crowd of this size--your bakery will know what that means, assuming you aren't going to attempt to bake them yourself because if you do, you will be baking cakes for 2 days to have enough to feed
150 people.  Do yourself a giant favor and change your menu to something you can handle on your own or get some help from a professional caterer. Do you realize that you are looking at about $750 just for the food ingredients to feed this many people?