How Much Food Per Person for a Dinner Party

The General Rule

Dinner party guests eat more than a typical weeknight dinner, but less than you might fear. They're drinking, talking, and eating across multiple courses — appetite is spread across the evening rather than concentrated in one plate.

The safest approach is to plan for slightly more than you think you'll need on the main course, and be more conservative on starters and sides. Guests fill up faster than they expect when eating in courses.

Starters and Canapés

Canapés served during aperitifs (before sitting down) are typically 3–5 pieces per person. If the aperitif period runs longer than 45 minutes, plan for 6–8 pieces.

For a plated starter, the right quantity depends on richness:

• Soup: 150–200 ml per person as a starter, 300 ml if serving as a light main
• Salad or vegetable starter: 80–100 g dressed weight per person
• Cured meats, charcuterie: 50–70 g per person as a starter
• Pasta or risotto starter: 60–80 g dry pasta or 80 g arborio per person
• Fish starter: 80–120 g per person

Main Course Protein

Protein is where most hosts under-buy. These quantities assume a properly structured dinner with a starter and at least one side dish:

• Boneless meat (beef, pork, chicken breast): 180–220 g raw weight per person
• Bone-in meat (rack of lamb, chicken thighs, ribs): 280–350 g raw weight per person
• Whole roasting joint: 300–400 g raw weight per person (bone adds significant weight)
• Fish fillet: 150–180 g per person
• Whole fish: 350–450 g per person (gutted weight)
• Shellfish (prawns, scallops): 150–200 g per person
• Pasta as a main: 100–120 g dry pasta per person
• Vegetarian/legume-based main: 200–250 g per person

If you're serving a crowd of known big eaters, or there's no starter, add 20% to these figures.

Sides and Vegetables

Plan for two or three sides with the main course. Guests spread across them rather than eating a full portion of each:

• Potatoes (roasted, mashed, gratin): 200–250 g raw weight per person
• Rice or grains: 60–80 g dry weight per person
• Green vegetables (beans, broccoli, asparagus): 80–100 g per person
• Salad (as a side): 60–80 g undressed leaves per person
• Bread: 1.5–2 rolls per person, or 60–80 g of a shared loaf

Cheese Course

A cheese course is served after the main and before dessert, or in place of dessert. It's lighter than most hosts expect guests to eat:

• Cheese (3 varieties): 60–80 g total per person
• Crackers or bread: 30–40 g per person alongside cheese
• Accompaniments (grapes, chutney, honey): 30–40 g per person in total

If cheese is the centrepiece — a generous board rather than a formal course — scale up to 120–150 g of cheese per person.

Dessert

By dessert, most guests are well fed. Portions can be more restrained than for a weeknight meal:

• Tart, cake, or pie: one generous slice — a 23 cm tart serves 8 comfortably
• Panna cotta, mousse, crème brûlée: 150 ml per person
• Ice cream or sorbet: 2 small scoops per person (around 100 g)
• Petit fours or chocolates: 3–4 pieces per person with coffee

Scaling for Group Size

Scaling a recipe for a different number of guests is straightforward in principle — multiply each ingredient by the ratio of new guests to original guests — but a few ingredients don't scale linearly:

• Salt and spices: increase by 75% of the linear scale when doubling or tripling
• Baking recipes: scale individually rather than multiplying a single batch
• Large roasting joints: cooking time doesn't scale linearly — use a thermometer
• Aromatics (garlic, onion, herbs): scale to about 80% of linear for large quantities

For 10 or more guests, it's worth running scaled quantities through a shopping list tool to catch discrepancies before you shop.

Quick Reference Calculator

Adjust the guest count below to see total quantities to buy across each food category.

The Buffer Rule

On the main course protein, always buy 10–15% more than your calculation. This accounts for trimming, shrinkage during cooking, and the guests who inevitably ask for seconds. For sides and starters, your calculations are more likely to be accurate — guests rarely overeat when eating across several courses. The exception is bread: always have more than you think. It disappears faster than any other item on the table.

Let Morsello Scale Your Recipes

Instead of calculating portions manually for each dish, Morsello's dinner party planner scales all your recipes to your guest count automatically and generates a single consolidated shopping list from your whole menu — with duplicate ingredients combined and quantities totalled across dishes.