Specifically looking for recipes that are relatively cheap, filling, and aren’t too time-consuming so I can keep up a routine without getting burned out. I have a 10 cup rice cooker so rice combined with other things would be pretty easy. I have a Costco membership and there’s a restaurant supply store near me, as well.
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i swear there was this food not bombs recipe book i saw someone post forever ago on the site that might be useful cause they feed lots of people all the time. if i end up finding it i’ll share unless someone else has it on hand.
i found it, here’s a link to the post!
(in the handbook, see page 123 and onwards for recipes)
Amazing share, comrade
5 loaves of fish and 2 bread
Stew my beloved…
A bean chilli is a great option imo and is great served over rice (run from it, hide from it, beans and rice will always appear when good inexpensive nutrition is required). Potatoes are also a great stew base.
Beans and rice! Cheap, filling, nutritious, and vegan. You can make a huge pot of beans by soaking them overnight, then cooking them with a half an onion (or 2), garlic, and salt them mid-way through. Should take about an hour to cook, add water as necessary.
Yup, there’s a reason for
Couple additional things I like to do with my beans:
- Add some MSG with your salt, it helps food taste more savory and satisfying. You don’t need much, significantly less than (maybe a fifth) the amount of salt. MSG has long got a bad rap for (mostly racist) reasons, but it’s great stuff.
- Add some vinegar near the end. Cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, whatever you’ve got. This can really brighten up the flavor, just make sure to do it near the end since the presence of acid can affect how the beans cook. And once again you don’t need much, I usually do a tablespoon or two for ~8 servings
msg my beloved
I’d look into плов and the general pattern of adding rice with ingredients to a rice cooker with some sauce and then mixing it all together when its done cooking.
Bumping this comment because plov. Carrots are cheap, cabbage is cheap, onion is cheap, rice is cheap, you can add beans for protein for cheap, and the end result will be flavourful and good.
Casseroles have kinda a bad reputation, but genuinely, big trays of baked stuff is a great way to feed a lot of people, and they don’t have to suck.
Mac and Cheese is kinda a classic crowd pleaser. Tater tot, other pasta bakes, french toast or bread pudding great for something sweeter. You can make mexican food this way too, basically same ingredients as a soft taco layered up, easier to cook and serve.
If you can get your hands on big pots and can bake, a soup with bread might work too.
Lentil & vegetable soup is delicious, filling and can be made to any flavour profile. Root vegetables and tinned tomatoes work great in it and are cheap. I tend to blend it with a stick blender and it’s very nice. And if you can bake bread loaves, you don’t need that many for 50 people as a side.
A lentil or a chickpea curry could also work with the rice, if you make a huge pot, it would be a filling meal for lots of people. The sides like raita is also something that is easy to make in bulk.
I have also made vegetarian lasagna and other casseroles like that for pretty big groups and it works great. So do salads. I have a go-to “chicken” & macaroni salad that I make pretty often. The chicken is soy strips, the cheap dry kind.
I’ve been to sikh and hare Krishna temples where they give free food to all kinds of people, way more than 50. So curries, stews, all kinds of wet food you can mop up with some rice or bread are always the best bet for these places. Many Indian or south Asian dishes are very easily scalable once you know how to make them.
When I did food not bombs we would also make big batches of pasta and minestrone soup, but soup is trickier because you need a deep plate to serve it on and spoons to eat it. Pasta on the other hand, you just need to decide on a sauce and make a huge batch of it.
bumping so you get answers
Burritos. They have the added benefit of being easy to distribute and require no additional utensils. It’s a bit more labor intensive than the other suggestions but still a cost effective option.
Trying to avoid burritos because of the extra labor. Looking for stuff to make in a big fucking pot and put into to-go boxes, mostly.
50 big macs
Curry Rice isn’t the easiest thing listed here but I’d suggest it anyway because it’s delicious. It’s basically a stew which means you can put in whatever you want to adjust to your dietary needs and combined with being served on rice you don’t need to make a ton per person (though a ton of rice per person, yeah, but with a rice cooker that’s very very easy)
I’d say bigos. It’s
- Cabbage
- Onions
- whatever meat or meatlike thing you have or can acquire
- sauerkraut
- tomato paste
- broth
- bay leaf, pepper, salt, maybe some paprika
pan fry onions, brown meat, fry tomato paste on the whole ordeal, add all the rest and let simmer until it’s all soft and the tastes have melted together. Gets better over the days (until it goes bad).
I know it might sound like a joke food from the USSR but everyone I’ve ever made it for really liked it
That hawaiian macaroni pasta salad i posted and was attacked over it being “midwestern” is great for this. Lots of macaroni, lots of vegetables, lots of mayonnaise, seasoning. You eat it cold so you don’t have to worry about re heating
You can make a lot of rice paper rolls before hand, but I feel like that volume of people will be a struggle.
For example, if each guest has a cup of plain rice to eat and it takes 15 minutes to cook, the last ten guests will be eating an hour and 15 minutes after the first ten guests started.
Sutlac for dessert
If you have a Costco membership I think they have a bunch of platters that you could get
