Catering portion guide
Plan on 4 oz of cooked pasta per person as a side, or 8 oz as a main. Dry pasta roughly doubles, so buy about 2 oz dry per person for a side: 50 guests needs about 12.5 lb cooked from roughly 6 lb of dry pasta.
Dry pasta roughly doubles in weight when cooked. You buy a little under half the weight you serve, so the purchase figure is lower than the served figure.
Planning factor: 0.45x. For every 1 lb you want to serve, order about 0.45 lb of dry pasta.
Order is what to buy as dry pasta. Serves is what reaches the plate after cooking.
| Guests | Order | Serves | Trays |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0.2 lb | 0.5 lb | 1 half tray |
| 3 | 0.3 lb | 0.8 lb | 1 half tray |
| 4 | 0.5 lb | 1 lb | 1 half tray |
| 5 | 0.6 lb | 1.3 lb | 1 half tray |
| 6 | 0.7 lb | 1.5 lb | 1 half tray |
| 8 | 0.9 lb | 2 lb | 1 half tray |
| 10 | 1.1 lb | 2.5 lb | 1 half tray |
| 15 | 1.7 lb | 3.8 lb | 1 full tray |
| 20 | 2.3 lb | 5 lb | 1 full tray |
| 25 | 2.8 lb | 6.3 lb | 1 full + 1 half trays |
| 30 | 3.4 lb | 7.5 lb | 1 full + 1 half trays |
| 40 | 4.5 lb | 10 lb | 2 full trays |
| 50 | 5.6 lb | 12.5 lb | 2 full + 1 half trays |
| 60 | 6.8 lb | 15 lb | 3 full trays |
| 75 | 8.4 lb | 18.8 lb | 3 full + 1 half trays |
| 100 | 11.3 lb | 25 lb | 5 full trays |
These are standard food-service planning figures, not fixed constants. Real yield moves with cut, trim level, cooking method, and how long the food is held. Weigh your own results once and adjust the factor to your kitchen.
The catering food calculator takes your actual dish list and guest count and returns quantities, tray counts, and a cost range for the whole event.
Open the catering food calculator