Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I have to feed a group of 15 for a weekend. Does anyone have any recipes for nutritious, inexpensive, easy to prepare meals?
By susan from WY
Buy several cheap pizzas and add your own garnishments to it. I do this all the time and they're always tasty. Buy mozarella cheese and shred it yourself. Add any of these items: pineapple, mushrooms, olives, pimentos, sweet or hot peppers, lunch meat, pepperoni, onions, and chop, slice, or shred to top and bake. The pizzas are nutritional and filling. Serve chips and drinks and you're sure to please. It costs a lot less to buy these canned/jarred items than if ordering from a restaurant. You could also do the all meat pizzas using lunch meat, pepperoni, cooked ground beef or sausage.
Grilled cheese is also good or how about a crock of chili with peanut butter sandwiches. Sloppy Joes, A ham and cheese melt sandwich or sausage and biscuits or spaghetti with ground beef added to the sauce with crackers.
Wow! This is a tough one! There's almost no way to feed that many people for an entire weekend cheaply that's nutritious and easy too :-o
I would suggest (depending on the meal) fairly plain veggie or pasta salads, soup, have build your own sandwich ingredients on hand, fruit, casseroles, scrambled eggs or simple omelets. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to ask for them to pitch in with bringing dishes to pass that would stay fresh in or out of the fridge for the weekend.
When our group has gatherings, everyone brings a dish to share, as well as any "favorite" drinks they have. Once I brought a whole tray of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some on white, some on potato bread, and some on wheat. It was a hit with the kids!
You can also offer Make Your Own pizza, taco, or salad. That way you just have to put out the fixings and they not only have fun creating, but it saves labor for you. You could have several crockpots of different soups, chili, or chowder, accompanied with crackers, bread, croutons. We make lots of fried rice, both vegetarian and with meat. Hope this helps!
I suggest to ask everybody to bring a covered dish. If they live close enough, then make a big pot of chili, serve with toast, when that's gone make a big pan of chicken & dressing, good luck.
I hope I'm not too late. Here are my ideas:
Pasta is cheap, so I would have a pasta night with mac & cheese (3 for a dollar boxes) for the kids maybe and spaghetti for the adults with lots of homemade bread or thrifty bread from a bakery outlet. You could also put out hot dogs with the mac and cheese.
You could get the cheapest lettuce you can find and chop it up for salad and make some homemade dressing or put out oil and vinegar and seasonings.
Next I would have a chicken or turkey and potato night because that would be cheap cheap cheap.
For lunches I would serve homemade soup/stew and lots of homemade bread or marked down bread from the bakery outlet. A pot of plain old beans and bread is sometimes refreshing and a simple surprise to people who are used to eating different things.
For breakfasts I would make lots of pancakes with a large jug of syrup and biscuits with sausage gravy ( you could stretch 2 one pound rolls of breakfast sausage) to a lot of gravy for 15 people. Just saute the sausage with some onions and add flour for rue and then add a gallon of warm milk to make gravy. Add some more flour mixed with cold water if the gravy isn't thick enough. Season to taste.
Biscuits for 15 people:
5 lbs flour
1/2 cup baking powder
2 sticks margarine
1 TBSP salt
enough milk to make the proper biscuit dough consistency. Bake at 425 15-20 minutes
For Desserts and Goodies:
Sugar cookies made from scratch are cheap.
A lot of cakes made from scratch are cheap.
Apples are usually on sale this time of year, so apple crisp or cobbler would be cheap.
Inexpensive Beverages:
Homemade iced tea (100 bags are $1-2)
Homemade hot black tea
Homemade lemonade (bottles of lemon juice are cheap)
Mix 50/50 dry milk reconstituted with fresh milk and serve ice cold.
I hope this helps in time.
I am having a surprise birthday party for my dad at 2-4 in the afternoon about 2 hours from my home. So I need food that is cheap, easy to transport, and won't spoil in the summer. I also don't have a great deal of time to prepare. I know, that's a lot of caveats!
I will get a cake from Costco, nuts, and mints.
What are the easiest ideas for punch, other snack foods? I am thinking I'll use balloons to decorate, but they are hard to transport. Does anyone have other ideas for decorations in a church basement?
Dress is casual.
Thanks so much!
I can't help with all this. But- for punch, it would be easier and cheaper to mix up a batch of Country Time Strawberry powdered pink lemonade drink mix and another of Lipton sweetened iced tea drink mix.
For one cheap and easy decoration, buy a few rolls of paper streamers and twist them while you put them up. They can easily be torn down afterward.
For party decoration ideas-try dollar stores, Walmart type stores, thrift stores (often have large amounts of party stuff!), etc.
You can also try a great online store that has TONS of party and decor stuff. This site also supplies elementary teachers with projects, youth groups, etc. Prices are very cheap and no hassle to drive around and try various stores. Right now the site has free shipping for orders over $59.00:
www.orientaltrading.com/
Blow up balloons with just plain air, not helium. Tie with a curly ribbon like you would get if you bought helium balloons. Make a loop of tape or use 2-sided tape and tape these balloons onto the ceiling with ribbons hanging down.. Can do ahead and looks as if you had bought helium balloons!
Hot dogs. Buns typically go on sale for $1.00. Get the hot dogs on sale too, by scanning store ads. Cheap, easy, fun and good.
I am looking for recipes to feed 40-50 hungry football players before game night. It needs to be cheap and filling!
By Marlene
Pasta is alway a good way to feed a group. It is cheap and filling.
Pre cook the pasta so all you have to do is dip it in hot water to re heat. Pasta sauce is cheap on sale. Or bake the pasta with a sauce. Some garlic bread and a salad
I do this every Friday afternoon. Let me know if you still need information.
How many lbs. of cubed meat would I need to feed 70 people?
The rule is 1/4 lb for a persons. That would be 17.5 pounds. I would buy a few pounds more, just to make sure I had enough.
That would be my estimate, too. The first thing I though of was QuarterPounder!! Good luck on your meal!
I need a recipe for a crock pot or baked dish for breakfast. It needs to be not too hard and enough for 40 people. Thank you.
Pulled pork. Large joint of pork shoulder, slow cooked in a marinade of your choice (plenty of ideas around) pull the meat and return it to the crock pot a few hours before you are ready to serve and let everyone help themselves, serve with bread rolls, pitta breads or wraps with lots of salad. Cheap and it's a crowd pleaser.
Try oven baked cinnamon french toast, put together night before, and bake in the morning. Bacon on the side. Big hit with the grandkids. Also made breakfast pies, with a hashbrown crust. Most of that can be prepared the nite before also.
How many loaves of French bread do I need to feed 150 people?
An average sized loaf of French bread has about 10 servings or slices. You can decide how many slices you would serve per person, such as 2, calculate the total loaves needed for 150 servings: 2 slices per person = 5 servings per loaf, 150 divided by 5 = 30 loaves.
How many loads of French bread do I need for 80 people?
I am cooking for 100 people and the menu is meatloaf, chicken, hot dogs, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, mac salad, Hawaiian rolls, and cole slaw. How should I divide the meat for this many people? Once I divide the meat, how many ounces per person should I calculate for each type meat?
I found a recipe for meatloaf that feeds 100 people on Geniuskitchen.com You will need the following ingredients
After mixing ingredients together bake in oven at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches at least 160 degrees. Once cooked weigh and slice the meatloaf into 4oz pieces.
Allow 1/4 pound meat per person. You can always multiply recipes. Some online will even have a converter built in.
Weekly we feed 40 to 120 people. We pay for the food ourselves and need some cheep suggestions. We need some new ideas as beans and spaghetti are getting old. We have great salad options, but could use some help with main dishes.
By Liana
Salmon cakes are inexpensive, tasty, and healthy. Buy the cheapest cans of salmon, keep the bones in for extra calcium, mix with a beaten egg, chopped onion, cracker crumbs, salt and pepper, fry patties in oil, serve hot.
I need to have enough lemonade for roughly 3000 people. How many gallons do I need? Is 120 gallons enough?
Theoretically you would need 188 gallons for everyone to have one 8 oz glass of lemonade.
Inexpensive recipe ideas for feeding a large crowd (150 or more people) at a dinner party/ how to know how much is needed.
Bonzai from Orem, UT
Here is an incredible recipe site from Kelowna, British Columbia. She had catering tips and large amount recipes.
This is where I go when I need recipes for a crowd.
Good luck.
Help! I have been put in charge of menu planning for an upcoming retreat we will be having at the beach in Oregon in January. The retreat is 3 days long and we will have access to 2 kitchens. I have no idea how to begin planning the food, the equipment, and any other needs that may arise so people can have good healthy food with gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan options. This is our first retreat that we will be hosting and we are going to have 40-60 people there. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
By Wendy from Olympia, WA
There are some good ideas here, I especially like the chicken and rice. My husband's birthday party is this weekend and while I love grilling burgers and dogs it seems I always end up with buns left over. Any other suggestions?
By Janet S
I've been thrown into managing shopping, menus, and volunteers for a non profit group of 150 starving kids that we feed 4 times a day. I need help with recipes for lunch and dinners. These kids burn up to 3000 calories a day, as they work on their show 10 hrs a day.
I do have some menu items, however the person that came up with these recipes just took recipes for 8-12 people and doubled, tripled, etc. This has caused too much food, less than is needed and food waste at times.
Any help would be great. We start an 8 week national tour in 3 weeks.
By Dana
Some recipes are easier to adapt tomcod for large groups than others. This is a page about easy food ideas for 70 people.
Preparing large quantities of food for a group event presents many challenges. The first is to know how much food to prepare, to avoid waste and hungry guests. This page asks about how much to buy when making chicken on a stick for a large crowd.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
I need some new ideas for feeding our church youth group cheaply. Sometimes it can be up to 30 kids.
