How to order tamales by the dozen for delivery in North Dallas

If you want to order tamales by the dozen for delivery in North Dallas, you have come to the right kitchen, because the dozen is the unit my whole family business runs on. Church suppers, office lunches, Christmas Eve tables, a Saturday when nobody wants to cook: it all comes down to how many dozens and where to bring them.

The short answer: A dozen of my tamales is $60 ($5 per tamal) in pork with red salsa or chicken breast with green tomatillo salsa. Order in our online store: choose chicken or pork, a half dozen or a dozen, delivery or pickup, and today or a date ahead, then pay online. The delivery fee is shown at checkout, and next day orders must be received and confirmed by us before noon the previous day.

That is the whole thing in a paragraph. The rest of this article walks through what a dozen is, how many you need, how to order, what to have ready, and what to do when the tamales arrive.

What a dozen is, and what it costs

Twelve big tamales, still in their husks, steamed from masa I make from scratch. Two fillings: pork slow-cooked in red chile salsa, and chicken breast in green tomatillo salsa. Order a dozen of one kind, or a half dozen of each. All the masa is gluten-free corn masa.

The menu has two sizes and the math does not change with quantity:

• Half-dozen, $30. The size that lets you order for nine people instead of twelve.
• One dozen, $60. The building block for every bulk order I make.

“Full-size” is not decoration. Reviewers call them “huge” and “packed with meat,” and I have watched grown men give up on a third. That matters when you are counting.

How many dozens do you need?

My rule from years of feeding crowds: two tamales per person is a lunch, three is a dinner, and one or two is plenty when tamales sit beside other food. Then round up to the next whole dozen, because an extra tamal is a happy problem and a missing one is not.

For a dinner with nothing else on the table, multiply the tamales column by one and a half. For a party with rice, beans and a tray of enchiladas from someone’s aunt, you can cut it by a third. The full chart with kids, teenagers and buffet situations lives in my article on how many tamales per person.

Splitting pork and chicken: for a mixed crowd, order about half and half, leaning a little toward pork when there are more men and a little toward chicken for an office. Both go quickly. If you are ordering for people who do not like heat, lean toward chicken; the red salsa has what one reviewer called “a little kick,” and the green is milder.

How to order tamales by the dozen online

One or two dozen, today

For a family dinner or a small get-together, open our online store; the order page explains how it works. The kitchen is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 9 AM to 2 PM and closed Sunday, Monday and Thursday. You choose chicken or pork, a half dozen or a dozen, delivery or pickup, and today, then pay online. The delivery fee is shown at checkout.

Three dozen and up, or any event

Once you are into several dozens, or the tamales are for an office, a church, a school or a party, it is the same online store: add the dozens you need, choose a date ahead and delivery or pickup, and pay online. Next day orders must be received and confirmed by us before noon the previous day. Only confirmed orders will be delivered as requested. The catering page and the bulk tamales page explain what offices, churches, teams and fundraisers usually order. Questions before you order? Call or text me at (469) 888-8398.

What to have ready before you order

The order takes about two minutes if you have these ready:

1. The date and the time. When do people eat? Work backward from that.
2. The address, with the details a driver needs. Suite number, gate code, which door, whether there is a loading dock or a front desk.
3. The headcount or the number of dozens. Either one. If you know the people, the table above does the dozen math.
4. The split. How many pork, how many chicken. If you cannot decide, half and half by the half dozen is the safe answer.
5. Your own extras. Plates, napkins, serving spoons and any sides are yours to set out, so put them on your list now.
6. A phone number for the day of. So the driver can reach someone who can open the door.

If you are gathering the details from other people first, my article on how to write a catering request has a template you can copy into an email. Larger orders are easier with notice, and the weeks before Thanksgiving and Christmas fill first, so for holiday dozens see the holiday tamales page early.

What arrives at your door

With delivery, your tamales come to the address you gave; with pickup, the address of our Plano kitchen and the pickup time come with your order confirmation. Either way, pork is in red salsa and chicken in green, so if you ordered both, keep them apart and mark which is which before guests line up. Count the dozens against your order before the driver leaves.

Then put them where people will eat. For a church hall in Allen, that usually means the kitchen counter next to the rice. For an office in Plano, it means the break room table, and the Plano catering page has more about ordering for offices there.

Tamales in husks hold heat remarkably well. Leave them in a closed container until people are ready to eat and they will still be steaming an hour later. Take the lids off early and you lose that, so resist the urge to peek more than once.

Leftovers, storage and reheating

Ordering by the dozen almost always leaves a few, and that is the best part. In the refrigerator, cooked tamales keep for several days in a covered container, still in their husks. In the freezer, wrapped tightly, they keep for months and come back nearly as good as the first day.

To reheat, steam is king: ten to fifteen minutes over simmering water from the fridge, longer from frozen. A microwave works if you wrap the tamal in a damp paper towel and go in short bursts. An oven at moderate heat with a splash of water in a covered pan is fine for a crowd. My article on how to reheat tamales has times for every method, including the air fryer, which surprised me.

Ready to order a few dozen?

Two dozen for Sunday dinner or twenty for the parish festival, Maggie’s makes them the same way: from scratch, in our kitchen in Plano. Whether it is one dozen today or many for a date ahead, Order online: choose chicken or pork, a half dozen or a dozen, delivery or pickup, and pay online. Then all you have to do is clear a spot on the counter.

Frequently asked questions

How do I order tamales by the dozen for delivery?

Order in our online store: choose chicken or pork, a half dozen or a dozen, delivery or pickup, and today or a date ahead, then pay online. The kitchen is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 9 AM to 2 PM, and the delivery fee is shown at checkout. Next day orders must be received and confirmed by us before noon the previous day. Only confirmed orders will be delivered as requested.

How much is a dozen tamales?

A dozen is $60 and a half-dozen is $30, which works out to $5 per tamal either way. Every tamal is big and made from scratch with gluten-free corn masa, filled with pork in red salsa or chicken breast in green tomatillo salsa. If you choose delivery, the delivery fee is shown at checkout.

How many dozen tamales do I need for 50 people?

At two tamales per person, which is a lunch, 50 people need 100 tamales, so order nine dozen, which is 108. If tamales are the whole dinner, plan three each and order thirteen dozen. If there is plenty of other food, seven dozen covers it. Always round up to the next dozen; leftovers freeze beautifully and running out is the one mistake guests remember.

Can I mix pork and chicken in one dozen?

Yes: order a half dozen of each. Six pork and six chicken is the most common mix, and for bigger orders you can set any split you like by the half dozen and the dozen. Keep the two apart on the table and mark them, red for pork and green for chicken, so your guests can tell at a glance. If some guests avoid heat, lean toward chicken in green salsa, which is the milder of the two.

How far ahead should I order several dozen tamales?

For a regular weekday, a few days of notice is comfortable, and our online store also takes orders for today. Next day orders must be received and confirmed by us before noon the previous day. Only confirmed orders will be delivered as requested. The weeks before Thanksgiving and Christmas fill first, so holiday dozens should be ordered as soon as you know you are hosting.

Do you deliver dozens outside Richardson?

Yes. We deliver to Allen, McKinney, Fairview, Frisco, The Colony, Plano, Murphy, Carrollton, Addison, Richardson and Far North Dallas, and the service area page shows the map. The delivery fee is shown at checkout in our online store, and pickup at our Plano kitchen is the other option. If your address is on the edge of the map, call or text (469) 888-8398 before you order and I will tell you honestly whether we can reach it.