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Taco Bar Calculator
How much taco meat per person, how many tortillas, and how much cheese, salsa and rice to put out alongside.
Your results
Cooked meat
2.7 kg (6.0 lb)
Raw meat to buy
3.6 kg (7.9 lb)
Tortillas (with spares)
52
Shredded cheese
0.68 kg (1.5 lb)
Salsa
0.9 L
Sixty grams of cooked meat per taco is the number that works. Restaurants use closer to 50 g, but a home taco bar means people build their own and they build them generously.
Buy a third more raw meat than the cooked figure. Ground beef renders out fat and water and comes off the pan at roughly three quarters of the weight that went in — the same reason a pound of raw mince never fills a pound-sized bowl.
Put out more tortillas than tacos. They tear, they get dropped, and the last few in a pack are always broken. Warming them in a dry pan for twenty seconds a side is what separates a taco bar from a plate of cold discs.
Questions people ask
How much taco meat per person?
About 180 g (6 oz) of cooked meat per adult, which is three tacos at 60 g each. Buy 240 g of raw ground beef per person to land there.
How much taco meat for 20 people?
3.6 kg (8 lb) of cooked meat, from about 4.8 kg (10.5 lb) raw. Add 60 tortillas plus spares, 900 g of cheese and 1.2 L of salsa.
What else goes on a taco bar?
Rice, beans, shredded lettuce, diced onion, coriander, lime wedges, sour cream and two salsas — one mild, one hot. The sides are what stretch the meat.