How to make dinner for a crowd that everyone will love. I served this meal for 10 people One the menu: Chicken salad on croissants, funeral potatoes, green salad, and fruit!

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chicken salad dinner with salad potatoes and fruit

Sunday nights we invite my adult kids, and anyone else who needs a meal, to our house for dinner. (check out my list of big group dinners here).

This week, I was able to prepare most of this meal on Saturday, which was great for keeping the kitchen clean on Sunday!

What I served with Chicken Salad Croissants

With this meal, I served:

Chicken salad sandwiches
Green salad
Funeral Potatoes
Fruit (specifically grapes)

Shopping for dinner for 10 people

The hardest part of feeding a crowd is knowing how many groceries and ingredients to buy. Here’s how I shopped for this meal:

1 dozen Costco Croissants.
One large package of Chicken thighs (3 lbs) I calculated this assuming each person will eat 4 ounces of meat) You can also use chicken breasts, and I actually think breasts taste better in chicken salad. You’d still want 3lbs.
1 jar Mayonnaise
4-5 stalks celery
Lettuce and tomatoes for people who want to add this to their chicken salad sandwich (Not much!)
1 lb grapes (for the chicken salad and on the side)
Two bags of green salad from Costco (we keep getting the Kale salad because everyone seems to like this.) One bag has 8 cups/servings, and I try to get 1 cup of salad per person.
Enough potatoes, cream of chicken soup, cheddar cheese, and sour cream for one 9X13 pan of funeral potatoes.
and I topped it all off with some chocolate chips to make cookies again. (I used this recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I will NEVER try another recipe again! They were absolutely perfect!

To prep the day before.

I love that I could get this whole thing ready the day before. It makes the day of the dinner relaxed and enjoyable- plus all the dishes could be cleaned before the overload of dinner dishes.

So, I made the ENTIRE chicken salad. This is best the next day anyway as it can chill in the fridge overnight.
I prepped the funeral potatoes, without cooking them, and kept it in the fridge overnight.
And I made the chocolate chip cookies.

To finish just before dinner

Just before dinner, slice the croissants in half if they didn’t come that way (Costco’s does not).
Bake the funeral potatoes in the oven. This takes at least 1 hour, especially from straight out of the fridge. So, make sure you start this on time.
Mix the salad.
Wash the rest of the fruit and put in a bowl.

Tips for making it weight loss friendly

You can absolutely make delicious food for your family, and stay on your diet! The way I modified this meal to fit my current weight loss goals, is

Put the chicken salad on lettuce instead of the croissant. (147 calories, 18 g protein, 9 g carbs, 5 g fat)
I added two slices of tomato
I skipped the funeral potatoes.
I had a generous helping of green salad (per cup 160 calories, 3 g protein, 17 g carbs, and 10 g fat)
And ate some grapes. (30 calories, 0 protein, 10 g carbs, 0 fat)

For a grand total of 337 calories, 21 g protein, 36 g carbs, and 15 g fat.