Our Definitive, Per-Person Guide to Planning Thanksgiving Dinner
How much food and drink you need for your feast, from the turkey to the wine.
ByLindsay-Jean Hard
Published On
Photo by Mikkel Vang
This year, and every year, our goal is to make The Big Day (that would be Thanksgiving, of course) as stress-free as possible. To help us all breathe even easier, we’re featuring Brittany Zeller-Holland’s illustrations of our per-person guide for planning Thanksgiving dinner (along with some explanations, detailed below), so you no longer have to question how much of everything you'll need to plan on.
Photo by Brittany Zeller-Holland
If some of the numbers feel on the generous side to you, well, that’s because they are. As a general rule, we'd rather aim high than come up short—plus, Thanksgiving leftovers are some of the best around.
Thanksgiving Starters
One exception to this comes at the beginning of the meal, where we’re planning on only four one- to two-bite starters per person. That’s because the meal is the main event, and we don’t want anyone headed into it with a full (or even partially-full!) belly.
This is not to say you even need to do four different Thanksgiving appetizers, or that any of them have to be over-the-top elaborate—a well-stocked cheese board could do nicely. If you need more ideas, here are a few of our favorites:
Featured Video
Dinner
For all of the main event dishes, we’re planning for overflowing plates, which means you’ll want 1/2 pound of potatoes and 3/4 cup stuffing per person. And 1 1/2 pounds of on-the-bone turkey per person is our standard, with one exception: With small birds (12 pounds or less) you’ll need to plan for 2 pounds per person (because smaller birds have a smaller meat-to-bone ratio).
Beverages
We’re planning on a full bottle of wine for every person (21 and over) that’s attending. Yes, you’ll probably have extra, but wine keeps and is nice to have on hand. Plus, if anyone gets going on politics, you might find yourself refilling more glasses than usual.
Not sure what type of wine to go with? Pinot noir is a safe bet. If you’re expanding your offerings beyond wine, we’ve got you covered there too—you’ll never run out of alcohol at a party again.
What’s left?
Now that your plan is in place and your portions are calculated, with a full three weeks to go, you can start thinking about your tablescape (and how nice it will be not to panic at the last minute about whether or not you bought enough potatoes).
We updated this article in October 2023.
Tell us: Do you have any tried-and-true numbers you go by when planning your Thanksgiving meal?