Cooking For a Crowd – VBS Style

*This Cooking For a Crowd – VBS Style contains affiliate links

I’ve cooked for a crowd a number of times now. It’s not as hard as you might think!

So if you get asked to cook for a crowd, don’t be intimidated!

I recently cooked for 3 days of VBS at my church. I ended up not taking nearly as many pictures as I wanted, though!

Cooking for a Crowd VBS Style

The first day, we had elbow macaroni with sauce & green beans. Cookies for a snack.

The 2nd day, we had hot dogs, chips, and green beans. With cupcakes for a snack.

The 3rd day we had bologna sandwiches, and carrots with ranch. Nachos for a snack.

I made the menu, the shopping list, and did the shopping!

Here is what 14 pounds of cooked macaroni looks like! I cooked it at home, the day before. Yes, you can do that with pasta! Simply coat the pasta with a little olive oil and it keeps nicely.

I had to pull this pic from my Instagram stories. Because this is the only picture I took of any of the 10 dozen cupcakes I made!

For the nachos, I bought 100 of these 2 ounce cups. It is so much easier to fill these cups ahead of time, than to scoop it out on plates while everyone is in line. Worth the price, I say!

I used a cookie scoop to fill the cups with cheese. So easy! The scoop I’m using in the picture is a Pioneer Woman one from Walmart. lol But here’s a link to a similar scoop.

When feeding a crowd, sandwiches are easy to figure out how many you need. Check the label on the bread you want to use, it will tell you haw many slices in the loaf. I recommend subtracting the heels, as most people don’t like to eat the heels. Yes, this is another picture I stole from my Instagram stories. lol

I made some sandwiches with mayo, and some plain, with a bottle of mustard on the side. So hopefully the majority of people had their sandwich the way they liked it. In this picture it was snack time. We put the sandwiches on the counter again in case some of the kids wanted another one. And some did. I also left the carrots on the counter. Then the tortilla chips with the cheese cups. I put out more plates as they took those. The counter isn’t big enough to put them all out at once. If you look close, you can see cupcakes on the far end. The kids didn’t care that they were left over from the day before. They just wanted them. lol

Here’s a cheat sheet for feeding a crowd. If something you want to serve isn’t on the list, just google it. For example, how much macaroni for 50 people. Then decide how much extra you want to make, if any, in case you end up with more people than you planned on.

It’s better to have some food left over, then to not have enough!

Even though I didn’t take pictures of everything, I hope I shared enough to encourage you that cooking for a crowd isn’t as hard as it sounds!

Check out my Preparing for a Large Cookout post for more ideas, tips, and recipes for feeding a crowd.

*This post contains affiliate links. if you click a link and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you.