I Hosted my First Taco Party and Here’s Exactly How Much of Every Ingredient I Served

Listen to Chrystina share how she prepared for the taco party, and how much food she wishes she bought the first time around in Episode 07 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.

While Jessica, Andy, and I were recording Episode 7 of the Gatherings Podcast (which is not yet released), it came up that I had never hosted a dinner party that included tacos.

Essentially, they both told me I was crazy because it’s one of the easiest options.

There’s a few reasons I’d never hosted a taco party:

1. We literally never had tacos as a child and I’m definitely a monkey-see, monkey-do kind of cook.

2. I’m not a huge fan of cooking meat. For two reasons. 1) I always end up overcooking it because I’m not sure if it’s done yet. 2) I’m always super paranoid that I’ve left meat juice on something in the kitchen and I scrub everything a million times and I’m still not convinced it’s clean.

3. I had no understanding of how much of everything I needed to serve.

The first one I couldn’t help. The second one I decided to get over for an evening. And the third thing, well, I figured I could take really detailed notes, call it an experiment, and blog about it later. Half for you, and half because next time I go to host a taco party I’m just going to google this and know exactly how much stuff I bought.

So before I got off of the call with Jess and Andy I told them I would try it. I would try hosting my own taco dinner party, which I decided to do at Badass Babes Dinner #3.

The menu

So I knew I was serving tacos. I figured the easiest thing to do would be to have chips and salsa for people to munch on for the appetizer and either ice cream or cupcakes for dessert. I ended up running out of time to make cupcakes, so I went with ice cream.

How much stuff I bought and how much it cost

I used this article on taco bars from StyleBlueprint to tell me what ingredients I was going to need to have this taco party.

I knew I was expecting 12 women between the ages of 24 and 35 for dinner. I took my best guess on the amount of beef I was going to need (using this forum on Chowhound) and then left for Whole Foods with this list:

• 3 lb. beef

• 2 lb. sweet potatoes

• taco seasoning

• refried beans

• cilantro

• salsa

• sour cream

• avocado

• hard shells

• soft shells

• tomato

• lettuce

• cheese

• jalapenos

• limes

• chips

• ice cream

Note: This is not the final list. Scroll down to the bottom.

I mostly eye-balled everything as I put it in the cart to see if it seemed like a reasonable amount. My total was $95.06.

Please note this cost doesn’t include wine as the event was BYOB.

Things you might want to add to the list include:

• Rice

• Onion

• Queso

• Black beans

The ladies at Whole Foods who helped me check out were super nice. I explained to them that I was cooking tacos for the first time and one gave me an excellent piece of advice. Whatever leftovers you have can be used in lunch salads for the rest of the week. Genius.

When I started cooking for the dinner party

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now (or know me in real life) you probably know that I don’t really ever have extra time laying around. I tend to fill it with things. I made it home around 5:00pm that day, and the party was scheduled for 7:00pm. In retrospect, I think I may have needed to make it home by 4:00pm in order to fit in all the preparation before people showed up.

When people arrived I made sure they had a drink and they all got to know each other while I finished cooking and putting out bowls full of ingredients. I also assigned the guacamole to someone to make when she walked in the door. (Fun fact: I had never met her before, but she seemed knowledgeable. And it was damn good.)

What I could have done to make the process go faster:

• Bought guacamole instead of avocados.

• Used a bigger frying pan to cook all of the beef at the same time instead of in batches. (I really need to buy a larger pan.)

• Not offered cilantro. (I’m not a cilantro girl. Maybe people who like cilantro know a faster way to clean it.)

• Ever had cooked tacos before. (I’m sure there was a learning curve).

How to prepare for your make your own taco bar

1. Cook the beef according to the taco seasoning packet directions. Put it in the crock pot to keep it warm until your guests arrive.

2. Dice up and cook some sweet potatoes. I reserved some of the taco seasoning for the sweet potatoes.

3. Make the guacamole using your favorite recipe (or delegate it). Julia used avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapenos, salt, and pepper.

4. Make sure all your guests have something to drink while you’re still finishing up after they arrive. (Oh, that one’s just me.)

5. Heat up the refried beans.

6. Clean the cilantro and put it in a bowl.

7. Cut the tomatoes, jalapenos, lettuce, and limes and put them in individual bowls.

8. Put out the cheese, sour cream, salsa, taco shells, and chips.

9. Put plates and napkins out for everyone.

10. Put utensils in every bowl you have on the table.

11. Tell everyone food is served.

12. Invite them to go back for seconds (and thirds).

13. Serve them ice cream for dessert.

How much food I plan to buy for the next time I have a taco party

So the party happened. Everybody said it was good! (Phew.) Most people made tacos, but a few just had salads (they already knew about the taco trick!).

That said, by the end of the evening, I did end up running out of some things, and having far too much of other things. Here’s three things I would do differently next time:

1. Not buy 2 bags of chips as an appetizer. Not even half of one bag went. I think if I had had the food ready on-time, I wouldn’t have needed them at all. That said, they could have been a good alternative to bullet point number 2 had I put them with the taco ingredients instead of on the table.

2. Not buy 2 boxes of hard shell tacos. I actually wouldn’t buy any. People could use chips if they wanted to.

3. I would have bought 4 lb. of beef. It was the only thing that was absolutely empty at the end of the night. Which makes me worry that people weren’t full when they left. (Because that’s what keeps Italians up at night.)

Here’s the final list of what I would buy for next time:

Serving Size: 12 females, ages 24-35

• 4 lb. beef

• 2.5 lb. sweet potatoes (5 or 2.5 lb)

• 3 packets taco seasoning (reserve some to use on the potatoes)

• 2 cans refried beans

• 1 bunch cilantro (as a topping and for the guacamole)

• 1 medium jar salsa (if you don’t do appetizers, you won’t need a large one)

• 16-oz. sour cream

• 7 avocados

• 24 soft shells

• 4 tomatoes (as a topping and for the guacamole)

• 3 heads romaine hearts (lettuce)

• 16-oz. mexican cheese blend

• 2 jalapenos (as a topping and for the guacamole)

• 2 limes (as a topping and for the guacamole)

• 1 bag tortilla chips

• 5 pints Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (phish food was the most popular)

Have you found similar results when cooking for large groups of people?  I’d love to hear what worked for you – or maybe how you made the cooking and setup part go a little bit faster.

Overall, I decided this wasn’t too bad to do. It was definitely harder than a crock pot meal or a dish of ziti, ricotta, and mozzarella, but not tooo bad. And the leftovers were pretty good.

That said, I definitely wouldn’t do it for any less than 8 people though. Not worth the amount of dishes in my kitchen that were dirty.