Christmas dinner vegetables – how much to serve (2024)

FAQs

Christmas dinner vegetables – how much to serve? ›

Sprouts, carrots and parsnips, the traditional Christmas vegetables are best bought fresh as they are in season and often grown locally. A single serving of vegetables should be around 80g, so just buy what you'll need on the day. For example if you're having 10 people for dinner just buy 800g – 1kg of vegetables.

How much veg is too much? Whether it's parsnips, sprouts, braised cabbage or carrots, 80g of each per person will do the trick. Clear your cupboards and fridge before writing your shopping list, it'll stop you from overbuying at the shop.

Too many vegetables should not be served at dinner; the general rule of serving two is a good one to follow. Lettuce is usually served with any salad and would make the third. In choosing the two, it is better to select one starch and one green vegetable; the two being pleasing in taste when eaten together.

The quantity. You will find that as your veg loses its moisture it will shrink so you always need more veg than you think. I work on the basis of 150g per person if it's a side to a roast. If you want the veg to be the centre of a roast veg uber-salad, then go for 250g per person.

A 2-quart bowl will serve 12-16 people. For raw vegetables plan 3-4 pieces for each person. For example 3-4 carrot sticks.

A standard serve is about 75g (100–350kJ) or: ½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables (for example, broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin) ½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils (preferably with no added salt) 1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables.

A serving of raw vegetables is one cup, while a serving of cooked or juiced vegetables is half a cup. “Vegetables naturally have water, so they shrink when you cook them. That's why it's a little bit less,” Rosemond says. Both men and women should aim for at least two and a half servings of vegetables a day.

What Christmas vegetables can be prepared in advance? ›

PREP YOUR VEGGIES

Getting these prepped and lined up in a tray on Christmas Eve will make Christmas morning so much more enjoyable. Get your potatoes, carrots, parsnips, red cabbage and Brussels ready, then simply cover with foil and pop in the fridge, ready to cook tomorrow.

Veggies galore

Sprouts, carrots and parsnips, the traditional Christmas vegetables are best bought fresh as they are in season and often grown locally. A single serving of vegetables should be around 80g, so just buy what you'll need on the day.

Sides and vegetables

Depending on the variety and number of side dishes, you can estimate around 110-170 grams per person. This can include items like rice, potatoes, salads, and steamed vegetables.

Estimate about 1 to 1 ½ cups of vegetables per person, or about 4 to 6 ounces.

That means that 5 servings a day would be 5 x 80 = 400 grams or 0.88 pounds. Let's just be generous here and call 5 servings 1 lbs per day. So our average (fictious) human needs 1 lbs of vegetables per day.

Using the cheapest possible prices for a set basket of 11 Christmas dinner items, our research shows it will cost £33.08 to feed eight people, £3.27 more than it did in 2022, when the same basket cost £29.36 — a price increase of 13%. The price per head is £4.14.