Family reunion food planning for 60 to 150 relatives

Family reunion food is the part of the reunion that gets argued about in the group chat for three months and then settled in one weekend by whoever gives up first. I know, because in my family that person is usually me. Sixty to a hundred and fifty relatives, four generations, a park pavilion in July, and a menu that has to please a great-aunt from Monterrey and a teenager from Frisco at the same time.

The short answer: pick one hot main that every generation recognizes, order it in bulk, and let the households bring the cold sides. For a family reunion, plan two of our big tamales per adult and one per child, in their husks. One hundred relatives is about 17 dozen, $1,020 at $60 a dozen, which splits to $60 a household across 17 households. The households bring the sides.

I have delivered reunions to pavilions in McKinney, church halls in Allen and a backyard in Richardson where somebody’s uncle had rented a bounce house the size of the garage. The menu was the same every time. What I learned is that reunion food planning is not a cooking problem. It is a counting problem, a heat problem and a who-pays problem, and each one has a simple answer.

Why reunion food is different from a party

A birthday has thirty guests who arrive at two and leave at five. A reunion has a hundred and twenty relatives who arrive between eleven and three, some of them driving in from Houston, and stay until the mosquitoes come out. The food has to be ready early and still be good late.

The age range is the widest you will ever feed. Babies, cousins in Little League, teenagers who eat like they are being paid to, parents, grandparents and at least one great-grandparent who needs something soft and mild. And the headcount is a rumor until the day of. Somebody’s branch of the family RSVPs for eight and shows up with fourteen.

The venue is usually outdoors or half outdoors: a park pavilion, a church fellowship hall with the doors propped open, a backyard with a rented tent. In a Texas summer that means heat, which is the single biggest reason reunion food fails. Potato salad on a picnic table at 2 PM is not a side dish, it is a risk.

So the menu needs three things: one hot main that holds for four hours and tastes the same at the end, sides that do not care about the heat, and a count that has room in it.

A family reunion food plan that feeds every generation

Here is the plan I recommend to every reunion organizer, and it lines up with our parties and celebrations catering page and our bulk tamales by the dozen, which is how most reunions actually order.

• The main, from us: pork tamales in red salsa and chicken tamales in green salsa, by the dozen, still in the husk, in chafing dishes or electric roasters on warm. This is the dish the great-aunt from Monterrey inspects and the teenager from Frisco eats four of. I suggest a roughly even split for a reunion; the pork has a little kick, the chicken breast in tomatillo salsa is mild enough for the kids and the grandparents.
• Rice and beans, from the family or the store, in their own pans. They stretch the meal when fourteen show up instead of eight.
• Extra salsa, sour cream, cotija, lime and cilantro, from the family, in bowls with spoons, so the toppings bar builds itself.
• The cold sides, from the family: chips, fruit, a slaw that holds up, watermelon, the tres leches that one cousin always brings. Assign them by household in the group chat and be specific.
• Drinks, from the family, in coolers of ice, in a different spot from the food so the two lines never cross.

What I would not do is a grill. Somebody’s uncle standing over a grill for four hours in July misses the reunion, and the food comes off in waves that never match when people are hungry. Tamales arrive finished. Nobody cooks at the reunion. That is the whole point of paying for the main.

All of our tamales are made with gluten-free corn masa, and the chicken is breast meat, so the cousin who cannot eat wheat gets the same plate as everyone. We make just the two tamales, and for a reunion they are all the main you need.

How many tamales for 60, 80, 100, 120 and 150 relatives

Two big tamales per adult, one per child under ten, then round up to the next dozen and add a dozen for the branch of the family that brings extra people. Our tamales are big; two is a real lunch, and reviewers say so. The prices below come from our regular tamale menu, $60 a dozen or $30 a half dozen, so every tamal works out to $5. For the fully worked version of the most common size, with sides, my guide to catering for 100 guests goes deeper.

Count the children at one each and fold them into the total before you round. A reunion of 100 with 30 kids is 70 adults at two and 30 kids at one, which is 170 tamales, or 15 dozen. The delivery fee is shown at checkout in our online store, so the organizer knows the full total before paying.

Splitting the cost by household

This is the part of reunion food planning that actually causes the fights, so here is how the families I work with settle it.

Divide the tamale total by the number of households, not the number of people. A hundred relatives is usually somewhere around 17–20 households once you count couples, grown kids with their own families and the single cousins. At 17 dozen for 100 people, that is one dozen per household, $60 each. Everyone can picture what $60 buys, because it is a dozen tamales, and nobody feels like they are paying for the branch of the family with eight kids.

For 150 relatives across 25 households, it is the same: 25 dozen, $60 a household. The cold sides and drinks are the households’ own contribution on top, which is what most families already expect.

One person collects, and one person orders and pays online in our online store. Do not have five relatives place five partial orders; it never adds up to the right number and the tamales end up arriving at different times. The organizer places one order with the date ahead, and the group chat can go back to arguing about the T-shirts.

Pavilions, heat and keeping the food good for four hours

Most reunions in North Texas happen between May and October, outdoors, and the heat decides what survives. Tamales survive. They were cooked in the husk, they stay in the husk, and over gentle steam they hold for hours without drying out. I have written about what else holds up in my guide to catering an outdoor event in Texas heat, and the short list is: tamales, rice, beans, salsas, chips, fruit, watermelon. Not mayonnaise. Not cheese trays.

The setup at a pavilion is simple but it has to be done before the food arrives:

1. Chafing dishes with fuel, or electric roasters if the pavilion has an outlet, with an inch of hot water in the bottom.
2. Shade over the food table. If the pavilion roof does not cover it, a pop-up canopy does.
3. Lids on between waves of relatives. This matters more than anything else.
4. The cold sides in coolers, brought out in halves, not all at once.

When the tamales arrive, by delivery or from pickup at our Plano kitchen, they go straight into your chafers. If the reunion runs long and you need to hold food past the afternoon, my article on keeping catered food hot for hours covers roasters, foil and the water trick in more detail. Reunions in McKinney, Allen, Frisco and Plano are all within our regular delivery range, and our service area page lists the rest.

Assigning the jobs so one person is not doing everything

Reunion food planning fails when one cousin does all of it. Split it into five jobs and give each one a name in the group chat:

• The counter collects RSVPs by household and adds the fudge factor for the branch that always brings extra.
• The collector gathers the $60 per household and covers the one online payment.
• The orderer places the one order in our online store with the date, the address and the pavilion details, and keeps the order confirmation.
• The setup crew, two people, gets the chafers, the water and the canopy ready before the food arrives.
• The sides captain assigns cold dishes to households and checks that three people did not all sign up for chips.

Then the rest of the family shows up, eats, argues about who looks most like grandpa, and goes home with foil plates. Order a dozen or two more than the count for exactly that reason; the tamales freeze well and nobody in the history of reunions has complained about extra.

Ready to feed the reunion?

Count the adults and the children, take the dozens from the table above, and have the orderer place one order from Maggie’s in our online store: chicken in green salsa and pork in red salsa by the dozen, delivery to the pavilion or hall or pickup at our Plano kitchen, on the reunion date, paid online. Summer weekends and the weeks before the holidays fill first, so the sooner the orderer orders, the easier the date is to get. Next day orders must be received and confirmed by us before noon the previous day. Order online and let the group chat rest.

Frequently asked questions

What is the easiest family reunion food for a big crowd?

One hot main that every generation recognizes, ordered in bulk, with the cold sides assigned to households. Tamales work because they arrive finished in their husks, hold for hours in a chafing dish in the heat, and a great-grandmother and a teenager both eat them. Add rice, beans, chips, fruit and drinks from the family, and nobody cooks at the reunion.

How much food do I need for a family reunion of 100 people?

Plan two big tamales per adult and one per child under ten. For 100 relatives with 30 children, that is 170 tamales, or 15 dozen; for 100 adults it is 17 dozen, $1,020 at $60 a dozen. Add a dozen for the branch that brings extra people, and let the households bring the sides. The delivery fee is shown at checkout.

How do we split the cost of reunion catering fairly?

Divide the tamale order by households, not by people. At 17 dozen for 100 relatives across 17 households, each household pays for one dozen at $60 and everyone can picture what that buys. Households bring the cold sides and drinks on top. One person collects, and one person places and pays for a single order online, so nobody is chasing five partial payments the week of the reunion.

Will tamales hold up outdoors at a park pavilion in summer?

Yes, better than almost anything else. They were cooked in the husk and stay in the husk, and over gentle steam in a chafing dish or electric roaster they hold for hours without drying out. Keep the lids on between waves, put the food table in the shade, and bring the cold sides out in halves from coolers. Skip anything with mayonnaise or a cheese tray.

Can you deliver a reunion order to McKinney or Allen?

Yes. We deliver from our Plano kitchen to Allen, McKinney, Fairview, Frisco, The Colony, Plano, Murphy, Carrollton, Addison, Richardson and Far North Dallas, and the delivery fee is shown at checkout. Add the pavilion or hall address and any gate or parking details when you order, and have the chafers set up with hot water before the food arrives so the tamales go straight in.

What happens to leftover tamales after the reunion?

They go home in foil plates, which is the tradition, and whatever is left freezes well in the husk. Reheat them in a steamer, a covered pan or a microwave with a damp paper towel and they taste close to fresh. Most organizers tell me they wish they had ordered a dozen more, so round up before you order rather than after.