My question: Barbeque. My potato salad. 60-ish people. How many pounds of potatoes?
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My question: Barbeque. My potato salad. 60-ish people. How many pounds of potatoes?
Thursday Night Smackdown 
I’ll guess that all of these people will be eating fuckloads of pork, so I’d guess about 15 lbs total, or multiplying your recipe by about five. When I made thanksgiving dinner for 12, 3 lbs made plenty of mashed potatoes given all the other stuff. Presumably potato consumption should scale across dishes.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,potato_salad_for_crowd,FF.html
I generally do 1/2 a potato for each person (you’ll still have leftovers). That is a lot of potato salad! think batches 😉
I thought you were kidding when you asked that on Twitter. I should know better, shouldn’t I?
I would say 15-20lbs but I am also NOTORIOUS (like the notorious b.i.g., but without the sweet rap skills) for making way way too much food.
Sooooooo….. No help at all. Sorry.
Here’s what AllRecipes says: basically one potato per person. That seems like an awful lot to me, as you will no doubt have other food (won’t you? Of course you will). My BH&G book says 2# potatoes for 8 people, but I’m too lazy to do the math to compare the two. I would err on the side of too little. Go with what Wendy said. Or something.
Just did a bbq a few weeks back for about the same amount of people. 10 lbs was too much but I guess it depends on how good the main dish is too 😉
assuming an avg of 4 oz. per person (some more, some less) then your recipe serves about 12 peeps. times 5 gives you 60 = asston of potato salad.
Personally, I could eat leftover potato salad for a week and be very happy. This is why I say go on the 1 small to 1/2 medium potato per person and hope like hell they don’t eat it all.
1/4-3/8 lb per person is my usual figure when we do catering. It won’t look like enough, but take into consideration that not everyone will eat it – saving you an assload of leftovers to deal with.
I checked with Taste of Home – they say 16 pounds here is the link http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Prize-Winning-Potato-Salad
my first gut response was 20 lbs – that may be too much. But I wouldn’t go less than 15. I cook once a month for a residential home for abused kids and usually do a 5 lb bag for homemade mashed potatoes for 15-16 (but mostly kids). good luck – I’m certain everything will be wonderful. glad you are feeling good enough to have a bar-b-q!
Every single catering gig I’ve ever done with potato salad left me with a scraped, empty bowl. I did a party last year for 50, they asked me to cook for 100 and the potato salad was gone at the end of the night. I started with 20 pounds of waxy reds. Does that help at all? And can I please come eat your pork? (Hang on. That did NOT sound right.)
Based on the rest of your menu, I’d agree with the general consensus of 1/4 lb per person, or 15 lbs total.
I did 40 pounds for 200 people once, and that was a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess)calculation. It got close. I think that comes back to your 15, or close to it, for 60.
K.
I’m with everyone else (almost). 15 lbs. should work out just about right. My daughter asked me about making enough for 20 people and I figured on 5 lbs., so 15 should work for you.
On the other hand, leftover potato salad gets better over the course of a few days, so there’s that. And it makes a mean hash with, hypothetically, the remnants of an ass-ton of pork.
thanks, all. i think i’m going to go 15-20 pounds. maybe closer to 20, b/c the size of the crowd continues to grow. (unfortunately, my apartment can not scale up like a potato salad recipe).
cmb, thanks for the mathematical model.
mindy, but how big is a “crowd”? also, one of the recipes calls for 121 eggs to 10 pounds of potatoes. scary.
lisa, yes, you should. who jokes about potato salad? especially my potato salad, which if i do say so myself, is stellar.
rebecca, you can come eat my pork any time literally.
peter, you are not kidding. hello, tuesday night dinner.
You don’t really mean that, do you, Michelle? That means, me, five boys under age 11, and an Evil Genius hauling in on your pork-fest. I would bring my own stellar IPA…