If you need to find the answer to this puzzling question of how much meat per person, then reading this article may help you.
Arranging a party, meet-up, or dinner is always an enjoyable event. But the host of the event has to face some issues to arrange it. One of the crucial problems is to decide how much meat is needed to serve per person to a satisfying meal.
Finding the right amount of meat per person is like solving the one-third of the event as the demand for meat at a party may differ with different factors.
Apart from this, knowing the right answer to how much meat per person is equally important when you want to buy the meat from a shop or order online for daily household requirements.
So, to avoid embarrassing situations like a shortage of meat at a party or getting out of storage for an everyday cook at home, you must have to know the right amount of meat you needed to satisfy the appetites of your guests.
Considering facts:
Before diving into the calculation and measurement, there are some facts you should look after closely. Fixing these facts will help you to decide the right amount of meat for your dish. So, let’s find the facts:
Menu Setup: Role of the Meat
To begin with, you have to set up your desired menu for the meal. Now find the role of the meat in your menu how you will serve meat to your guests. Is it only the meat or some other item, or do you have some dressing and salad with the beef?
Main Dish: Are you considering meat as your main dish like chicken, pork, steak, roast for the party? If the answer is yes, then the meat quantity per person would be 8 ounces or 1/2 pound, up to 12 ounces or 3/4 pound for each person.
Side Dish: If you are serving meat as a part of a more prominent menu set with some pasta, potato, or curry, then the quantity may have some cut-off. It would be 4-6 ounces or 1/4 to 1/3 pound.
Number of Guests:
This fact is essential throughout the whole arrangement as you need to estimate all these items based on the number of guests. So, before deciding the amount of meat, you have to confirm the number of guests/ persons, so that you can calculate the total quantity of the required meat.
Category of Guests:
To calculate the quantity, you have to guess the consumption-ability of your guests. That guess may sound less important, but this could be different based on the guest’s age and their daily diet.
For example, young teenagers, or sporting growing adult persons, may prefer a little more than the average quantity. So, you have to increase the amount if the maximum of your guests is in this category.
Again, you may cut off some portion from the average if you have kids or old persons on the list. That quantity may also differ with a different region.
Types of Meat:
There are different types of meat like chicken, beef, pork, turkey, etc. These variations may defer the amount of meat. So, you have to decide which one is you selecting. We will discuss the quantity for each type of meat later.
Time of the party:
The Schedule of your party should be in consideration in terms of calculating the meat amount. Because in lunchtime, people would like to take more than dinner time. Usually, people want to have more decadent food for lunch and lighter food for dinner.
Do not forget to check our another guide- How do you make hamburger in a meat grinder
Regular Meat Quantity for a meal
There is a recognized or regular quantity for meat in a meal. You can calculate this amount to buy meat.
- Half of a pound or 8 ounces or 227 gm of raw meat can fulfill a regular appetite.
- If you are serving meat with only 2 or 3 side dishes, you can use ¾ pound or 12 ounces or 340 gm.
- Increase a pound each for big appetites like athletes, teenagers.
- Kids cut it back.
- In the case of meat dishes serving with additional 5 ounces per person will be enough.
- If you serve a meat dish in a heavy sauce or gravy base, 4 ounces per person will be enough.
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Shrinkage and Yield of Meat
The fundamental nature of meat is it will shrink after cooking, and the amount of meat that remains after cooking for eating is called yielded meat. Do not be hesitant about this fact.
It’s a comfortable approximate percentage to keep in mind during busing and cutting the meat because this shrinkage percentage may be an increase or less according to the cutting shape of the meat pieces.
- Bony pieces like wings, ribs have less shrinkage and more yield meat.
- Boneless meat has more shrinkage than bone-in meat.
- Fattier meat has more shrinkage and less yield.
Some Examples of shrinkage and yield percentages are given below:
- Whole chicken – 35%
- Whole turkey – 50%
- Brisket (both point and flat) – 43%
- Brisket (only flat) – 52%
- Pork Loin – 65%
- Pork ribs (baby back ribs) – 50%
- Beef (ground) – 85%
- Beefsteak
- Fish – 30%
Different quantities of meat per person based on different types of meat
As we said above, the quantity of meat per person may differ according to different types of meat. So, let’s discuss how much meat per person is according to other kinds of meat.
How much chicken per person?
For most parties and events, chicken is a very preferable and easy meat dish. From a chicken, we can find boneless thighs, wings, chicken breasts, leg pieces.
You can adjust a chicken with different types of recipes like chicken fry, roast, and BBQ. Now we have to calculate differently for boneless and bone-in chicken meat.
Chicken meat yield mostly depends on if you are roasting, stewing, or cooking in the oven. Serving with side dishes or appetizers, 1.5 pieces per person is enough.
Chicken wings will give 4-5 ounces. If you go with the boneless meat, then take 10 ounces; it will provide you with 6-8 ounces of meat after cooking.
How much Turkey per person?
Turkey has lots of similarities with chicken, but usually, it is not served as the main dish and is mostly used as a side dish or as dressing or in gravies. It would be good enough with 4 ounces of turkey meat per person with a 50% yield.
How many steaks per person?
For maximum outdoor gatherings and parties, steak is the first choice of meat item. In that case, How much meat per person? The easy answer is with the average 70% yield, 12 ounces per person will be good enough.
You can go with T-bone, Porterhouse, N.Y. Stripe steaks. For the safe side, It can be 16-17 ounces for bone-in steak and 14-12 ounces for boneless steak.
How much Lamb per person?
The calculation for lamb meat is quite different than the other types of meat. Mostly it depends on how you cut the pieces. Generally, for the main course, 8 ounces of lamb meat is required per person.
With some appetizer, 3-4 ounces per person is enough. Typically 11 ounces of raw chops gives 5 ounces after cooking. An 8 ounces raw lamb leg piece shares the same.
How Much Rib Roast per Person?
15-16 ounces per person will be enough to get 12 ounces of a cooked portion. Rib roasts usually have about 30% bones and fat. You should take a minimum of 10 pounds of the roast for ten persons.
How Much Pork per person?
Pork or pulled pork is another popular meat item for events and parties. Pork shoulder or pork butt is known as Boston butt, is the user for pulled pork.
With the 35%- 50% of yield, you will get 3 to 6 ounces, and that is enough, but you can increase a little more for being on the safe side. You may decrease it from 6 ounces to 4 ounces of pork to play a smaller role with other appetizers.
Last Words:
Considering all these kye factors, calculations of before and after cooked quantity, you can finally get the answer of how much meat per person is needed to avoid the shortage of meat items in an enjoyable outdoor gathering or a family party or a nice dinner with precious friends and guests of yours.
The answer will also help you estimate a perfect budget for your event, and it will decrease a massive amount of food wastes, which is a significant issue these days.
If you have any questions related to how much meat per person, please feel free to contact us, our expert will answer your queries as soon as possible.