Get all of the tips, recipes, and ideas for feeding large groups of people, like church camps, family reunions and even just big dinners at home.

If you are looking for menu ideas to feed a crowd, you’re in the right spot! Over the years, I’ve unintentionally become something of an expert at feeding large groups of people. I’m sharing a wealth of experience below!

20+ Menus to Feed Large Groups

BBQ pork sandwich on bun on white plate

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

This super easy pulled pork recipe can be made in the Instant Pot or slow cooker, and it can be made ahead of time, refrigerated or frozen, and reheated in a slow cooker or electric roaster when needed. I like to serve BBQ sauce on the side, but you can mix it in with the meat for easier serving.

What to Serve With This:

White plate with cilantro lime rice, black beans, sweet pork and toppings.

Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Build-Your-Own Salads or Burritos

The beauty of this copycat Cafe Rio sweet pork is that it can be made ahead of time, frozen (or refrigerated), and reheated in a slow cooker or electric roaster when needed. It is also versatile! Serve it buffet style so people can make their own salads, bowls, or burritos. This is my go-to meal for feeding a crowd.

What to Serve With This:

  • Cilantro Lime Rice
  • Cilantro Lime Dressing (can be made up to a week ahead of time)
  • Easy Black Beans (4 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed + 12-ounce jar favorite salsa, simmer on the stovetop for up to an hour or cook on low in a slow cooker until warm)
  • Chopped romaine lettuce
  • Tons of toppings: tomatoes, avocados, cheese, salsa, sour cream, etc
  • Tortilla chips
  • Tortillas
  • Fresh fruit (watermelon, grapes, or apple slices)
  • Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (these bars can be made ahead of time and frozen for up to two months)
sloppy joe on white plate

Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes are always a hit! This recipe is my absolute favorite and has been for almost 20 years. The Sloppy Joe filling can be made ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen. Reheat in a slow cooker or electric roaster (or even a pan in the oven).

What to Serve With This:

Four crispy-shelled ground beef tacos filled with toppings on a white platter.

The Best Ground Beef Taco Meat

Literally the best recipe for ground beef tacos EVER. You can use ground turkey as a sub for the ground beef. The meat mixture can be made ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen and reheated in a slow cooker or electric roaster. Serve the taco meat “bar style” so people can build their own tacos or salads.

What to Serve With This:

scooping serving of easy cheesy weeknight pasta bake out of white 9X13-inch pan

Weeknight Baked Pasta

This quick-to-assemble pasta bake can be prepped ahead of time and refrigerated for up to two days or frozen to bake when needed. If baking from frozen, let the pasta bake thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours if possible. If not, add 45-60 minutes onto the baking time (and bake covered until the end).

What to Serve With This:

Close up view of shredded chicken topped with chopped cilantro.

Instant Pot Smoky Honey Chicken

This chicken is AMAZING. And so perfect for feeding a crowd. It can be purposed into tacos, salads, “bowl” type meals, and is great for buffet-style, build-your-own lunches or dinners.

What to Serve With This:

Slow Cooker Red Beans Sausage and Rice

This is an excellent meal for large groups! It is hearty, cost-efficient, and so easy to make. I made it several times for a group of 100 construction workers, and it was one of their favorite meals (I made lunch for them every month for three years).

What to Serve With This:

bite taken out of an italian meatball and cheese sub sandwich

Meatball Subs

This recipe is a great one for making the meatballs from scratch, but you can easily use frozen pre-cooked meatballs and heat them through in a slow cooker or electric roaster with jarred marinara sauce for a super simple meal.

What to Serve With This:

  • Sturdy sub sandwich buns
  • Mozzarella cheese (I use shredded mozzarella as it melts quicker once added to the sandwiches on top of the meatballs and sauce)
  • Chips
  • Fresh fruit
  • Veggies + ranch or a tossed green salad
  • Classic Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (these cookies can be made ahead of time and frozen for up to two months)
White shallow bowl with mashed potatoes, two pepperoncini, and shredded beef.

Mississippi Pot Roast

This is the best pot roast to make for large groups because the gravy make itself! Serve over buns or mashed potatoes. The flavor is out of this world delicious! And it can be made ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen to reheat.

What to Serve With This:

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas

Slow Cooker Carnitas/Pork Tacos or Cuban Street Tacos

Another fantastic “taco” type meal, either of these pork taco recipe are excellent for large crowds. The pork cooks in a slow cooker (or if large batches, in an electric roaster) and can be made ahead of time and frozen to reheat when needed.

What to Serve With This:

  • Tortillas for tacos
  • Chopped romaine lettuce for salads
  • Toppings for tacos or salads (sour cream, salsa, cheese, tomatoes, olives, avocados, etc)
  • Fresh Fruit (like watermelon) or Honey Lime Fruit Salad
  • Veggies + Ranch
  • Extra Fudgy Brownies (these bars can be frozen for several months)
White bowl with brown rice, hawaiian haystacks gravy, mandarin oranges, chow mein noodles and peas.

Hawaiian Haystacks

This is one of my kids’ and Brian’s favorite meals of all time. I made it for a large group at a girls church camp, and it is a great family reunion meal (I know the combination may seem unusual, but this recipe is a definite “thing” especially in Utah/Idaho – it’s creamy chicken gravy over rice loaded with toppings). It is a great meal for a large group because everyone can customize their own plate with toppings!

What to Serve With This:

  • Hot cooked rice
  • Toppings: mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, chopped green onions, chow mein noodles, tomatoes, olives, green peas, shredded cheese, and more
  • Steamed peas (if not – or in addition to – serving them on top of the haystacks)
  • Fresh fruit or a green salad
  • French Bread Rolls or Easy Peasant Bread
  • The Best Swig Copycat Sugar Cookies (these can be frosted and frozen ahead of time – they thaw beautifully)

Slow Cooker Italian Beef Sandwiches

This beef is melt-in-your-mouth tender and so, so good for sandwiches. It makes a delicious lunch or dinner. The beef can be made ahead of time and refrigerated (3-4 days) or frozen to reheat later.

What to Serve With This:

Sweet Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin

Sweet Balsamic Glazed Pork

This pork recipe has a decades-long loyal following for a reason – it’s amazing!! That sweet balsamic glaze takes it over the top. It is a great option for serving a large group, especially if you need a break from tacos or other Mexican-style food (which seems to be an oft-made style of meal for large groups).

What to Serve With This:

Spatula holding square of cheesy chicken spaghetti in white pan with the rest of the casserole.

Baked Chicken Spaghetti

This recipe can be made for a large group by multiplying the recipe for larger quantities and baking in larger, buffet-style pans (disposable pans work great). Some readers have reported that it does very well being assembled, frozen, and baked later when needed.

What to Serve With This:

Mexican Haystacks: a smorgasbord of delicious taco flavors simmered together in a tasty sauce served over rice or quinoa. Easy, fast, yummy!

Mexican Haystacks

A wonderful cost-efficient, delicious meal for a crowd, this recipe for Mexican haystacks is basically a tasty Mexican-style “gravy” served over rice. It is always a hit…and another great meal where everyone can customize their own plate.

What to Serve With This:

Two saucy enchiladas on white plate with fork.

Slow Cooker Mexican Shredded Beef

This delicious, saucy Mexican shredded beef is great for tacos, salads, enchiladas, burritos, or quesadillas. Honestly, the options are endless and dependent on how motivated you are – do you want to assemble enchiladas yourself or let your group dish up their own tacos? This beef will be a hit no matter what.

What to Serve With This:

White bowl filled with taco soup, cheese, sour cream and tortilla strips.

Slow Cooker or Stovetop Taco Soup

You won’t believe how incredibly easy this soup is to make! And it is perfect for large groups – everyone can load their own choice of toppings on top of their bowl. It is hearty and filling and so flavorful!

What to Serve With This:

Slow Cooker Lasagna

Slow Cooker Lasagna

This slow cooker lasagna is SO easy and so, so yummy. Round up a few extra slow cookers, and this can easily be made for a crowd. The assembly in the slow cooker is so simple, and because it cooks for a couple of hours, it leaves time to prep the other items for the meal.

What to Serve With This:

Two Bonus Menu Ideas:

Baked Potato Bar

Build-Your-Own Sandwich Bar

  • Sandwich buns (homemade or storebought)
  • Condiments: yellow mustard, dijon or whole grain mustard, mayo, miracle whip, pesto, ranch, others (get creative!)
  • Meats
  • Cheeses
  • Toppings: lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, pickles, bell peppers, cucumbers, pickled onions

TIPS AND RESOURCES ⬇️⬇️

Homemade vs Store Bought

All of us have different guidelines and comfort levels when it comes to making every last thing from scratch vs buying every bit, even the prepared stuff, at the store.

I am not here to lecture. Instead, as one who gets excited to make as much as I can from scratch, I’m giving a little emotional support and virtual hug to say: it’s ok to cut some corners when feeding a crowd.

Save your sanity by taking some shortcuts!

Focus your homemade energy on the recipes/food that really need a from-scratch touch.

An example: if you’re serving sloppy joes, make the sloppy joe filling from scratch (especially since it can be made ahead of time and frozen to reheat later!) and grab the buns from the store.

Easy French Bread Rolls

How to Figure Out and Plan Quantities

My takeaway from feeding large groups of people for decades is that surprisingly: you often don’t need as much food as you think you do.

There are websites dedicated to giving advice on how to alter recipes to feed a crowd (like this old school forum), but below are a few quick rules I use to plan quantities for large groups:

  • For meat, plan on about 1/4 to 1/3 pound of meat per person. This really is dependent on the group you are feeding. If it is all adults, you’ll need more meat than if you are feeding kids.
  • EXAMPLE: For a family reunion recently, my mom used this recipe to feed 30 people. She bought 8 1/2 pounds of pork, and we had about 1/2 cup leftover. The quantity was perfect. For reference, we had about 15 adults and 15 kids (some of them teenagers).
BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches
  • For a large group, side dishes will almost always feed more than the serving size in the recipe states. This might be because often large groups consist of adults and children or because if there is a hearty main dish, the side dish can go further. Either way, I’ve learned that if a side dish recipe (like fruit salad or potato salad) states the serving size as 6, if my group is larger than 15 or 20, I can usually plan on that recipe feeding more like 8-9 people.
  • EXAMPLE: If I am making honey lime fruit salad for a group of 30 people, the serving size on that recipe is 6. However, if I five-times that recipe to get 30 servings, I’ll have a lot leftover. Instead, I’m going to figure the recipe will feed more like 8 people. So I will multiply the ingredients by 3.5 or 4 to get enough servings for 30 people. This isn’t an exact science, and a lot will depend on who you are feeding (their ages, food intake ability, etc), but it’s a general guideline that has helped me in the past. I still submit that it’s better to make too much than not have enough, but keeping this in mind when planning for a large group will help with food costs and leftovers.
Honey Lime Fruit Salad
  • A large but still “average” sized watermelon will yield about 50 triangle slices. You might wonder why I need to include such a specific detail, but the one time I ended up with SIX LEFTOVER WATERMELON because I had no idea how many slices each would yield has scarred me; I’m on a mission to help others.

If you are looking for more dialed in information on quantities, this post is invaluable. It has a lot of information like the watermelon tidbit above.

Freeze Everything

Ok, maybe not everything, but it’s rare that I’ve found a recipe or food that doesn’t freeze well, which means you can make a lot ahead of time. 

Some notable exceptions that you should NOT freeze are: potato salad, fruit salad, macaroni or pasta salad, dairy-based recipes, etc.

But most main dishes and desserts can be made ahead of time and frozen with great results.

Most cookies and brownies/bars will freeze perfectly and can be made weeks ahead of time. Cool them completely. Cut into squares (for brownies/bars), and freeze in freezer-safe ziploc bags (press out as much air as possible), or in large Tupperware-type containers separating the layers with parchment or wax paper.

Easy Peanut Butter Fudge Bars

Kitchen Tools and Equipment for Cooking with a Crowd

Here are a list of tools I use constantly when cooking for a crowd. In most cases, you don’t need to purchase all of these items. Ask around and borrow what you need!

  • Large slow cooker: an 8-quart slow cooker can make food for a lot of people.
  • Electric Roaster: I use my electric roaster so often that I actually have two. I can’t believe how handy these are (and I love lending them out to people who need to use them for their cooking endeavors).
  • Electric Roaster Liners: these save on a lot of cleanup! Make sure to get the liners that are foil-based and not plastic as the plastic liners made recently melt easily.
  • Large capacity mixing/serving bowls with lids: there are a lot of options for these. Old school Tupperware bowls. Whatever Costco has in stock. And these stainless bowls without lids are a lifesaver, too, for mixing up big batches of just about anything.
  • Storage containers: I have six of these 1.5 gallon Rubbermaid storage containers, and I use them all.the.time. They also make a 2.5 gallon size (I have several of these, as well). I use these large storage containers for freezing batches of cookies, serving watermelon and various other fruits/salads in, and more. The lids make transporting food so easy.

I hope the information and menus in this post were helpful!

Feel free to chime in the comments below with your experiences making food for a crowd and your favorite thing to serve when feeding a large group of people!