Meal ideas for a birthday party on a budget?!
Answers: I'm having my child's second birthday party in a few months. There will be about 15 adults there. Last year I bought sandwich trays, salads, appetizers, and a storemade cake. It's a casual party but I want to have good food for everyone, but not spend tons of money. How can I cut corners? And is it really worth it? I appreciate any tips and/or recipes. Thanks!!!!
Usually when we have huge parties, we'll get pizza. I don't know if there is a Little Caesars where you are at but they have a deal on their hot n ready pizzas to go. $5 for a 14" large cheese or pepperoni with no limit. 3 boxes of large pizza = less than $20.
You could also buy a box of egg rolls and bake or fry those.
You could make a pasta salad or make pasta.
You could also make scalloped potatoes - buy a few boxes - prep time takes about 2 minutes and the rest is the ovens job.
Or if you don't want to do pizza and egg rolls, you could do tacos. Just prepare the beef and have everyone make their own tacos. All you would need is beef, taco shells and condiments such as: shredded lettuce, shredded tomatoes and shredded onions (you could do the shredding yourself) and shredded cheese.
You could buy mini brownies from Costco and cookies.
Drinks could be water, soda, juice or lemonade.
The dollar store also has a variety of food items you can pick up. You could also get paper plates and paper cups from there as well as napkins.
All this combined should be way less than $50 (aside from the cake). Not bad for a party!!
during my sons first birthday we were trying to remain within our budget. So what we did is we gave my son a farm theme party which he likes, and we served fried chicken and mash potatoes we had like 40 adults and everyone ate so good and the food went with the theme. In your case a box of take out chicken would be enough to serve the adults. It's very economical.
Get a large roast, either pork or beef and cook it in a crock pot until is shreds easily with a fork. Pour in some BBQ sauce and let people pile it on buns their selves. You can buy pre shredded cabbage and carrot mix as well as the coleslaw dressing and serve that alongside, with some potato chips and some baked beans. Get the box mix cake and make cupcakes, which are easier to decorate than a cake if you are not to artistic. Good luck.
trays are good but you can make them yourself for half the price, cheese and crackers, fruit tray with yogurt dip, rolled meat slices and halved bread, your own potato, or macaroni salad, or have a cook out you provide the meat and ask that each family bring a covered dish to go with it.and for the cake make cupcakes saying "happy second birthday to (child's name) "one letter on each, arrange so you can read them.
Good day,
how about pasta salad- shell pasta w/blk olives-green onions diced w/ tops -cherry tomatoes and mini shrimp toss w/ your it dressing and top with parm chez. u can feed 20 people for about 25 dollars. toss in some bread sticks and make cupcake.
50 dollars and you have got a party.
I wouldn't worry too much about overly healthy thing it is a party after all. A good idea is to go to subway, or another popular sandwich place in your area and order a variety of subs. If you want you can cut them up and people can have different kinds. I've even heard of people who have bought the subs NOT MADE i.e. buy the bread rolls and then buy the ingredients seperately, that way people can have exactly what they want, it's easy and economical and you won't get stuck with heaps of half eaten sandwiches! Other ideas for adults are crackers and cheese, fruit and nuts not to mention a variety of cold cuts you can pick up from a grocery store! For the kids (not sure what age they are) consider going to Mcdonalds and the like and getting happy meals for each guest, for health conscious parents serve fruit about 15 mins before you intend to bring out the happy meals. That way they have something nutritous and and not fill up on junk. Good luck, and great job putting so much thought into this!