2/3 cups of cut up lettuce will be about right for a serving....I can't tell you how many heads to buy because I don't know how big they are.

Here are my notes from a luncheon that served 120...but we had ham loaf a noodle casserole and bread too.

"Salad was lettuce, spinach, grated red cabbage and carrots. We cut up 6 heads of lettuce and 2 bags of spinach, one small head or red cabbage shredded, and a pound of shredded carrots. We had about 2/3 of a gallon left."

You will not need 20 cups for 12 servings....this is not a main dish salad....nor will it be served in a bowl as a first co9urse....if I understand correctly.
You can likely feed the crowd on 3 packages, but I would get 4 to be safe.
And make your own dressing!!...cheaper and easier.

I would make 8 times this recipe.
1/4 Good olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp anchovy paste or 1 or 2 anchovy fillets
egg beaters....equivalent to 2 eggs
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsps worchestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste ( I add no extra salt...the cheese and the anchovies are enough)
Black pepper....a good grinding over the top....maybe 1/2 tsp.l
dump all but the cheese in the blender or the FP...blend until smooth, add the cheese and pulse until mixed.

And as another short cut....use garlic bagel chips for crutons.

65 high school kids???? I will pray for your soul.

In smaller amounts, I usually get three servings per head of romaine. That works out to 4 6-pack bags of lettuce. And my dressing is similar to Linda's, omitting the anchovy. ;-o

How did you get roped into this job?

I agree with Sushi. $ 6 pack bags will do it. However I would not make my own dressing in this instance, I would go with commercial dressing and croutons as you posted but 1 cup of dressing to 20 cups of chopped lettuce seems over dressed to me.

You'll want to dress it as close to serving as possible and use just enough dressing to coat the lettuce lightly.

You have enough on your hands with 65 kids!!!

My daughter is starting High School (9th grade) and will be joining the Marching Band. They needed a "Food Coordinator" so I volunteered. I'm going to need lots of help from all of you! I hope you don't mind!!!

My goal is to develop a team (it was just one person in the past!) and to establish menus and recipes that will be easy to follow so they don't wind up with no help in the future when I am gone. Linda, your dressing recipe sounds wonderful, but to achieve my goal, I'm wondering about just using bottled dressing?

Friday is the first meal - following an all day (all week) band camp and preceding the first football game of the season. Because this is my first meal and I have no help yet, I'm doing CostCo Pizza, Caesar Salad, Watermelon slices, cookies, lemonade and water.

How does 1 1/2 cup of dressing to 6 heads of CostCo (smaller heads) of Romaine sound?

Thanks everyone! :-)

Jeri

I have done lots and lots of meals for mobs....some for mobs of kids age 9 and up....some for college kids and some for adults and kids.
I always seek to do what I do as cheaply as possible.....and that involves lots of labor. When the labor is not forthcoming....then the $$ must!
It will cost more for bottled dressing....but for sure it's easier.....so go that way.

Another thing I have learned....when dealing with large quantities, always measure!...when figuring out....for example how many heads of lettuce to use....if the heads are smaller or larger that the person who made the recommendation, it won't matter when you are feeding 12....but when you multiply that out 5 times, that's a huge difference. If you figure on each kid will take 3/4 cup....you will need 45 cups of lettuce....have 50 just to be sure. So cut up one package of lettuce hearts and see how much it makes....then see how much more you need.

For the dressing....have lots...but don't over dress the salad and return what you don't need.

Other things I have learned....you can never have too much fruit salad....just an assortment of fruit cut up.

It's impossible not to smile with a cookie in each hand....and everyone loves cookies and bars!!

The most universal thing picked out of dishes made with mixed veggies is peas...not mushrooms, not green peppers, not broccooli....but green peas!!

A serving of a pasta dish (not spaghetti) is a cup.

Kids love chocolate milk, and you can skimp on another dish if you provide lots of chocolate milk.

Kids (and adults too) love breakfast for dinner. French toast and little smokey sausages are very well received!

There's more....but those come to mind.

Some GREAT information Linda! Thank-you!

Please correct me if I am wrong, but we will have 65 total. I don't think everyone will take salad - do you? What has been your experience? Should I still plan for 65 or something smaller - like 50? I don't want to run out, but I don't want way too much either. Though the lettuce is cheap and I can return un-opened dressing....

Hi, jeri - I was tasked with Caesar salad for my mother's 80th birthday party in March. I've copied and pasted my expereince (with many useful suggestions from forum members, and Lindac is always spot-on so listen to her!!)

"I just wanted to get back and thank everyone for helping me with this. I made too much salad LOL. There were only about 45 people at the party, and there was another "salad bar" kind of salad...if I had it to do again, I'd cut everything in half and it would have been perfect for 45 with the second salad. That said, if there had only been one salad and 70 people I do believe this ratio would have worked fine, since lots of people were gobbling it up.
I spent about 45 dollars, and here's what I used:

5 18 oz. pkgs. romaine hearts (Trader Joe's)
1 large head of red romaine (regular grocery store)
4 15 oz. jars of Marzetti's refrigerated creamy caesar dressing,2 regular, and 2 lite
2 cartons of grated parm cheese (Trader Joe's), approx. a lb. total
juice of 3 fresh lemons
5 5 oz. bags of caesar croutons

I chopped the lettuces, washed them and spun them in a newly acquired heavy duty salad spinner which my mother will now enjoy :0) I put the chopped lettuce in huge giant ziplock bags the night before for transport to the church kitchen. I squeezed the lemons and strained the juice and put in a jar with a lid. I took everything on Sunday to the church kitchen. They had a huge, enormous salad "bucket" and all of the ingredients filled it well.

I used plastic gloves and tossed everything by hand, rinsing out each of the salad dressing jars with some of the lemon juice to get every last drop. I'd estimate that the salad sat about 1/2 hour before anyone started to fill up their plates from the buffet.

So many people came up to say how much they really loved the salad and wanted to know how I made it. I sent some of the fans home with smaller, large ziplock bags full of the stuff.

The party was great. My mom had a wonderful day. She also really got a charge out of all of the responses I got from people here about the salad. I read them to her each day.

Many thanks."

seagrass

I made a test run last evening. I purchases a 6 pack of Romaine which weighed 3 3/4 lbs. I took 3 heads for my test - they weighed 1 lb and 13 ounces before cleaning. I used 1 cup of dressing - which was a good amount. I do tend to over dress, but both my husband and daughter thought this amount was good. I added 4 ounces of croutons - which I thought was perfect, and 2 ounces of grated cheese. I thought I would need more cheese, but that seemed to be plenty.

We also thought these 3 heads would serve 10-12 as a side salad - way more than I would have thought!

So, My Easy Caesar Formula will be:

Caesar Salad for Band - feeds 20

1 6 pack of CostCo Romaine Lettuce (approx 3 3/4 lbs)
2 cups of bottled dressing (love that I can just open a 16 oz. bottle and dump the whole thing in!)
1/2 pound of croutons
1/4 pound grated Parmesan cheese
Black Pepper - optional

I would love to add fresh lemon juice, but that just adds a level of complexity and I am trying to create a notebook that will be easy to follow.

Thanks for the help everyone! :-)

Look for the Minute Maid frozen lemon juice. Easier than squeezing fresh lemons, and it's excellent quality. But I think you probably don't need it at all, if the bottled dressing is sufficiently zingy. If not, and you can't find the lemon juice (I think WalMart carries it) and you want to zip up the dressing, a nice shot of white wine vinegar will do it.

Bank kids are the best----you will all have a great time!

Great to do a pre test but I am not at all comfortable with 3 heads feeding 10-12 as a side salad given you simply cannot control what anyone will take unless you are doing the serving.....I'd go with 8-10 max!

You are fine with 3 heads serving 10 to 12....and 6 heads easy serves 20....yes some may take more....but others will take less...or none at all.
My advice is to mix in batches....plan on 3 batches with a couple of heads of Romaine washed and cut up ready to dress in a hurry if you need to.
And I would squeeze the juice of a lemon over every "batch".

And....not to gloat....but didn't I say you would need 3 packages of 6 heads? LOL!....and you will have some leftover...to be eaten by the kitchen crew!

If you email me, I will send you the recipes I have on file for church meals I have done.
I also have collected an assortment of sheet cake and bar recipes...those that can easily be served as "finger food" and don't need an extra plate.

Linda - I think you are right about 3 bags being enough, but I will err on the side of caution this first time out. The bags only cost $2.99 - everything else I can return. I was planning on 6 heads per batch - using a large 2 gallon bag to hold the prepped lettuce. You think I should add the juice of one lemon to each of these batches? It really won't be that hard to do. I have a lemon tree, so it won't even add to the cost. That was the only complaint my daughter had last night - that it was not "lemony" enough.

Thanks for the tip on the frozen lemon juice! That may come in handy this year.

Chase - we do serve the kids. I'm not 100% sure why - perhaps portion control is the reason. But I would prefer the kid who loves salad to take as much as he/she wants, and the kid who knows he will not eat much to take less than a serving.

Thanks everyone! :-)

Three bags will do it....but I get very nervous if I don't have some leftovers....and would buy a 4th bag of lettuce.
I would for sure squeeze a lemon over the salad as you are tossing it...since you have them gworing on trees....amybe even more than one lemon!....and plan on a little less dressing.
If you wash the lettuce the day before and store in zip lock bags...add something to absorb moisture....either a cotton tea towel or some paper towels.
I don't know where you will be doing this....but those large stainless bowls are worth their weight in gold...there are about 6 at the church and I liked them so well I bought 2 for myself....even though I have giant crockery and wooden bowls....there are times when you just need a big tough stainless bowl!

We used to serve too....but soon discovered too many things being left. So now we let them serve them selves...with supervision....I had one kid who took no "French toast but about 1 1/2 pounds of Little Smokeys....I had to call him back! but I figure it's not my business to make them eat their vegetables!

I picked up 2 large bowls - I figure one will be on the table for serving and the other will be ready to mix up a fresh batch. :-)

Linda - I'm happy to hear of your experience letting the kids serve themselves. It really does make more sense to me. I also don't know how much help I will have. I'm going to see if I can institute this here.

Thanks again for all the help and for those recipes. I can't wait to try those Fresh Orange Cookies!

Jeri

I would never argue with Lindac on loaves and fishes for the masses! I think you should set up a website with your experience, methods, ideas and suggestions! I'm always impressed with your knowledge and experience and kudos to you for all the volunteer time for funerals and the like. How selfless and generous.

So much comes down to the math in here. Knowing weight and volume measurements and checking that package. An unusually light or heavy weight head of lettuce can throw the math off on a big pile.

My one thought on this is it might be a good idea to have a little extra dressing available for ones who like a little extra. You can put less on the salad and keep more people happy and save some cost as a bonus. Even a pepper grinder might be a good addition. Some of us like an unusually high about of FGP on a salad. Not difficult, not expensive and the more salad people kids eat, they might go lighter on the more expensive stuff.

Other comment, if you're not buying the cookies, make bars. Easier and just as well received.

Oh, and kudos to you too Jeri for volunteering! I'm sure it's going to go well and you'll have a great time, plus learn something too for the future! So be sure to report back and share! :)

One other thought... line up a list of people who have electric roasters available to use when needed!

All excellent ideas....but for the web site! LOL! Ask and I'll tell....and I have a file on my computer and in a binder.
As for bars...people like an assortment....bars and cookies...and brownies too.

Good idea on the dressing...I always under dress a salad to be served from a big bowl to a crowd....it gets soupy very fast ( I know that's what croutons are for!)

Also good idea on the roasters.
I have bought and donated punch bowls to the church....bought at thrift stores for $5 and under. They can break....but are cheap and look nice for serving.

Also...remember the size of the serving can be somewhat controlled by the serving utensil. I use scissor tongs for salads....a spoon even a huge one won't serve much salad. And when a casserole seemed to be go9ing too fast, I have changed out to a smaller serving spoon!!
And I would cut the lasagna before serving....and cut small and say...please come back if you want seconds. Better than throwing it away.

Juicing fresh lemons takes minutes and gives a fresh homemade taste to the salad.