How Much Salad per Person

What this does

So you are buying lettuce for a gathering and you have no idea how much is enough, which usually ends in either a wilting surplus or a bowl that runs out first. This calculator settles it. Enter your guest count and it tells you how much lettuce you need, both for a small side salad and for a heartier main course salad.

How to use it

1. Enter the number of guests.
2. Press Calculate to see the lettuce needed for a side salad and for a main course.

You get both amounts in ounces, so you can pick the one that fits your meal.

How the maths works

It comes down to a per-person serving of lettuce, which differs depending on the salad's role. For a side salad the tool uses about 2.6 ounces a person, and for a main course salad about 5.85 ounces:

side salad = guests × 2.6 ounces

main course salad = guests × 5.85 ounces

So for 8 guests, that is roughly 21 ounces of lettuce as a side, or about 47 ounces if the salad is the main event. The main course portion is a little over double, which makes sense given it is doing more of the work on the plate.

Shopping tips

To turn ounces into a shopping list, it helps to know that a head of romaine is roughly 12 to 14 ounces, and bagged salad greens usually come in 5 to 10 ounce packs. Remember the figures here are for the leaves themselves, so once you pile on dressing, tomatoes, croutons, cheese, and the rest, the bowl fills out and you can often lean toward the lower end. And at a buffet with lots of other dishes, people tend to take less salad, so you rarely need to over-buy.

Questions people ask