New to catering, need help with amount of beef for meatballs

[imanalienchef]

My boyfriend and I are catering an event this weekend and we have some questions. We are going with an Italian theme.

So---how much ground beef do we need to make meatballs for about 30 people, using a #40 scoop.

Also how much pasta?

[Chris Amirault]

A few questions.

Is this to be a meal? Or a midday snack? Or...?

Will there be any other food, or just meatballs and pasta? (Nothing wrong with that -- but it affects portioning.)

When you reply, I'm sure you'll get a lot of precise feedback.

[imanalienchef]

There will be other food. We have a salad bar, the spaghetti and meatballs and also a suate to order station with veggies, chicken and shrimp with liter sauces, plus dessert to follow.

The total number of people there will be about 60, so that is why we were planning for about 30 for spaghetti and meatballs area.

[Chris Amirault]

Well, assuming you'll have a hungry crowd looking for a meal, not a snack, I'd go safe and aim for about 4 oz dried pasta and 6 oz of uncooked ground meat per person. If you're not using breadcrumbs, egg, onions, garlic, etc., you could bump that ground meat up a bit.

Are you making sauce/gravy as well?

[imanalienchef]

The meal is after a wedding rehearsal, so they will probably be hungry.

But with the number of choices they will have, not everyone is going to eat everything.

We will have marinara sauce and some alfredo sauce with that area.