Dinner for 200+ People for less than $400

Ricky and I were in charge of the food for our church Christmas party this year. We had never pulled off a dinner of this scale before so it was quite an adventure. I'm happy to say that the dinner (which was held last night) was a success. We were a little nervous because we didn't have a huge budget to work with (less than $2/person), but it all worked out. So just in case you ever have to cook dinner for 200+ people here's what to do:

1. Come up with a menu:

• Pick a main dish first. If you are most concerned about money, don't make meat the main dish - the dish will be cheaper if you incorporate meat but don't make it the main part. However, if you're like us and don't want to have to cook a million pans of enchiladas, lasagna, you-name-it, pick a main dish that will be easy to cook. We went with pre-cooked, spiral-cut hams. These are easy to farm out to volunteers, and since they are pre-cooked you don't have to worry about under-cooking and thus food poisoning anyone.
• Pick side-dishes that are cheap, but filling. We went with mashed potatoes, bagged salad, rolls, and green beans. All of these items are very cheap and filling. Salad is about $1/pound at Sam's Club.

2. Figure out how much food to buy, and how much everything will cost. If your estimate comes out over-budget change your menu until you find food that fits within your range. There are some great web sites that tell you how much food you will need for large numbers of people. Here are the amounts you would need to serve 200 people a ham dinner. The prices below are for Sam's Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan unless otherwise mentioned. I won't make you do the math, but we spent less than $400 on this meal, which means it was less than $2/person. You can't buy food like this that cheap at a restaurant :).

• 80 pounds of ham ($2.19/pound)
• 70 pounds of potatoes ($3.88 for 10 pounds)
• 7 containers of sour cream ($1.59 for one container at Kroger's)
• 3 large containers gravy mix (each container should have 60+ servings) (a little over $4 per mix)
• 4 large cans of green beans (I can't remember the price)
• 300 rolls ($4.07 for 32 rolls)
• 1 gallon ranch dressing ($6.87)
• 1 gallon Italian dressing ($4.88)
• 30 pounds bagged salad ($2.66 for a 3-pound bag)
• 1 whole sheet of chocolate cake with white buttercream frosting (a little over $30)
• 1 whole sheet of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (a little over $33)

3. Find people to help you cook the food. We found a few families to help us cook the food. Each family warmed a ham in their oven and made mashed potatoes. If you are serving dinner to 200 people you should be able to find some volunteers to help cook. Wait to cook the gravy until right before the meal begins. You should be able to cook it at the church or wherever you serve the dinner.

4. Put the food out to be served. We had two serving stations with food on each side. That way four people could get their food at one time. This helps you avoid long lines. We had a separate water station. We wheeled in a dessert table with the cakes and dessert plates on it after everyone had finished the main meal.

5. Enjoy the food - my favorite part!

6. Take care of any left-overs. We were surprised that we had a few left-overs. We let our cooking volunteers take home the extra ham. We also gave left-over salad and rolls to families who helped us clean-up after the party (great incentive to stick around and help). We donated the rest of the left-over food (unopened bags of salad and the rest of the cake) to a homeless sheter in the area.