Need ms ideas for buffet for 50

SkintG

I did a family party for about 20 people or so, not quite on your scale.

They are mostly the other halfs family and fancy themselves to ba a bit middle class and foodie!

They were very impressed with my canapes, which were budget to say the least. I rolled slicess of reduced supermarket sliced bread as flat as i could and managed to cut four circles from each slice using a biscuit cutter. I then eggwashed one side and added to a greased yorkshire pudding tray and baked for five minutes until crispy. i€ repeated this until I had about 100 empty 'canape' bases.

Then I filled them with cheap toppings

20x BLT used less than one pack of value bacon, quater of a lettuce and about 5 cherry tomatoes, all stuck together with a smidge of mayo (sachets borrowed from local weatherspoons!)

20x cheese and chutney - reduced strong cheddar, mums HM chutney

20x sausage and mash - used one spud for mash, used 4 economy sausages, finished off with cold thick onion gravy.

20x spaghetti bolognase, added garlic butter, about three pieces of spaghetti and a teadpon of sauce

20 x curry and rice - made from remains of tea that night.

Quitle a repetative process, but comes across as fancy and taste great cold!

bonar

sounds great,might give it a try tonight and just seeif I can do the same.

NJW69

I'd do three types of salads, coleslaw, potato salad and a rice salad. All are easy to make yourself; one white cabbage shredded, three carrots grated, two onions diced and then mixed with a mixture of mayonnaise and salad cream, 5lb potatoes, cooked and left to go cold then diced (or little new potatoes in their skins), chopped spring onions, snipped chives and again mixed with mayonnaise, bag of rice cooked with some curry powder, sweetcorn, onion, peas and carrotts and left to go cold.

Sandwiches buy warbutons ready sliced t-cakes in packs of twelve often on offer and serve them open so you get two sandwiches out of each one and people can see whats on them. I'd do tuna mayonnaise, egg mayonnaise, ham salad (ham in large packs from Netto), cheese and onion or pickle, prawn in maries rose sauce (if you can afford it) buy a large bag of frozen ones.

Large quiches but don't do too many as they often get left (Morrisons do some at reasonable money).

Sausage rolls, mini ones, sometimes some of the supermarket deli counters have them and you get them cheaper the more you buy same for spring rolls, samosas etc.

If you can afford to do chicken buy large bags of frozen drumsticks and roast them yourself at home.

Salads (tomatoe, cucumber, lettuce type) very often get left.

Large plate of cheese and biscuits, go for a strong cheddar (whichever is on offer), a blue cheese such as stilton and a soft cheese like a brie or caemenbert (sp) and a box of assorted biscuits.

Lidl, Netto, Aldi, Iceland all do large party size desserts but again I would do less of these as they also get left.

How much do you want to spend per head or in total and then it would be easier to suggest ideas?

bonar

I really dont know how much per head, venue wanted to charge £8 per head but this is way too dear. any suggestions as to a reasonable amount,

mum2one

Sorry to ask, what is the ocassion, and what sort of age groups are you catering for?

Depending on what you buy and the more careful u are, (avoiding waste- my tip wad tip for ham sandwiches was to cut the excess of the side, and put these into another sandwich, same principle applies for rolls).

If the venue wants £8 per head, u could easily do it for £2.50 ph, (maximum spend) x

soappie

You can't go wrong with cold Coronation Chicken and a cold rice salad on the side...

Good luck hun xxx

Icey77

bonar wrote: »

lots and lots of great ideas guys. just logged back in and will start writing it all down and plan now. as I said before I was starting to panic a bit!!!!!!. I heard that birthday cake was good and cheap from costco is that true, my other thought was lots and lots of cupcakes in a stack with green icing with footballs on the top ones. what do you all think,

The Costco cakes are HUGE and very good value for £12 (ish) ... if you are wanting a football theme - they have one with green icing and white lines etc which can then be iced with your wording choice included in the price.

On top of that the cakes a very nice cakes and I'll always buy one if I have an occasion to have a cake for

Pink.

Hi bonar,

There are some good ideas on these earlier threads that may help:

buffet ideas for 100+ on a budget?

Wedding buffet for 150 people...!!!

Party and Catering - any ideas?

budget buffet help!!

help ideas for party food

party food for 80+ help!

Ideas for really cheap easy Buffet food please!!

Buffet Ideas

Christening Buffet ideas?

Help ! Planning small buffet birthday party for 17, NEVER done anything like this ? !

Pink

Owain_Moneysaver

You can hire catering equipment, tea urns etc. Supermarkets or off licences often have free glass hire and wine on sale-or-return.

The lids of 5-ream copier-paper boxes, lined with tinfoil, make good serving trays and are deep enough to stack without squashing the food.

Start begging now for tupperlockandlockware containers from everyone you know, and spare fridge space.

Little laminated tent cards saying what the dishes are can encourage people to try things they don't recognise straight away, and reduce wastage. You don't need a laminator - Value laminator pouches work quite well with a moderate iron on the kitchen worktop.

Why not theme parts of the buffet - have an Italian table with green/white tablecloths (paper), pizza slices, pasta salad, bruschetta; an Indian table with pakora, samosas, spicy rice salad; an American table with mini hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken pieces.

Stay away from shellfish, it's so high-risk if not kept properly chilled.

bonar

its a 25th birthday, wide age group from 7,10,11 year old right up to couple aged 70, with lots of sons friends from uni. I was really nervous about it before posting but now there are just so many brill ideas.

really need to sort out what drinks to serve with buffet as said before no access to function suite kitchen and we live 15 miles away. would take too many flasks to have tea/coffee. any ideas?