A full roast tri-tip is up there with the best meats to serve for a feast, for sure. If i heard you were having an event serving tri-tip, believe me, I would try to get invited.
So, with so many people guaranteed to show up, you want to be sure you’re offering everyone the right amount of meat. After all, tri-tip should be the hero of the dish.
Don’t underestimate hungry guests. For a full proof plan, here’s how much tri-tip is needed per person, enough for 5, 10, 25, 50, even 100 people. We’ve also seasoned some extra tips in for serving tri-tip to a crowd!
The first thing to clear up is that over the cooking process a tri tip roast or tri tip steak will lose roughly 20-30% of its weight. This means if you cook 10 pounds of raw tri-tip it will come out around 8 pounds of cooked tri-tip.
When you’re serving tri-tip to your guests, the amount you should serve depends on what other foods you are offering, whether it’s other meats or sides.
But, as a general rule of thumb, if the tri-tip is the hero of the dish with only 1-3 sides, you should be serving half a pound of cooked meat per person.
If you’re also serving 1-2 other meats along with the tri-tip, or 3+ sides, then you should be serving a quarter of a pound of cooked meat per person.
These estimations will often leave a little extra, for those that want a second serving or for leftovers. There’s also nothing stopping you from cooking extra to begin with too for the sole purpose of guaranteeing leftovers!
How Much Tri-Tip For 5 People?
If you’re cooking for a get-together of 5 people make sure you have:
- With 1-3 Sides: 2.5 pounds of cooked tri-tip to serve 5 people half a pound each.
- With Other Meats/ 3+ Sides: you’ll only need 1.25 pounds of cooked tri-tip to serve each person a quarter of a pound.
How Much Tri-Tip For 10 People?
If you’re cooking a small gathering of 10 people or so you will need:
- With 1-3 Sides: 5 pounds of cooked tri-tip will be perfect to feed 10 people, half a pound each.
- With Other Meats/ 3+ Sides: Not being the star of the dish you’ll only need 2.5 pounds of cooked tri-tip here.
How Much Tri-Tip For 25 People?
To make sure you have enough tri-top to go around for all 25 of your guests, prepare:
- With 1-3 Sides: you’ll need 12.5 pounds of cooked tri-tip to serve up half a pound each for 25 people.
- With Other Meats/ 3+ Sides: 6.12 pounds of cooked tri-tip to serve a quarter of a pound for each person.
How Much Tri-Tip For 50 People?
If you’re cooking for an event or party for 50 people, you’ll want to be sure you’ve got the right portions set out!
- With 1-3 Sides: you’ll need a few tri-tip roasts to get 25 pounds of cooked meat for 50 people. Half a pound each.
- With Other Meats/ 3+ Sides: You’ll still need a few roasts to get 12.5 pounds of cooked tri-tip for 50 people.
How Much Tri-Tip For 100 People?
Ahh yes, an 100 person event, tri-tip is very fit for the feast. Make sure you’ve prepared enough for each person. You’ll need:
- With 1-3 Sides: 50 pounds of cooked tri-tip is needed to feed 100 people.
- With Other Meats/ 3+ Sides: only 25 pounds of cooked tri-tip is needed if you have extra sides or meat to provide.
How To Keep Tri-Tip Warm For Large Groups?
Cooking tri-tip for a crowd can be a challenging enough task to accomplish anyway. Particularly if you’re trying to get different levels of steak doneness (just go with medium to keep everyone happy).
Tri-tip is a rather tender cut of beef when slow-roasted, or grilled as steaks of high heat. Though, when you’re keeping it warm before serving you certainly don’t want to overcook it.
There are three viable ways to keep tri-tip warm for large groups, without overcooking it:
- The first is a traditional rest method. Remember the internal temperature may rise an extra 5°F during the resting process. So, after your tri-tip is cooked to your desired doneness, remove it from the heat, let it cool for a few minutes and wrap it in foil. The slightly cooling process here is essential, as if you wrap it right away it will continue cooking for too long.
- If you’ve cooked the tri-tip well in advance and you need to keep it warm for longer times, just like if your brisket is done too early, you can wrap your roast in a towel and place it into an insulated cooler box. This keeps it warm for up to 4-6 hours easily, but does risk overcooking the tri-tip.
- If your oven goes to a low enough temperature, between 140-150°F, you can simply place your tri-tip inside, wrapped in foil to retain the moisture for almost as long as you wish, but safely for 4-6 hours.
What Side Dishes For Tri-Tip?
Luckily, there are lots of mouth-watering side dishes that you can serve with your tri-tip. However, if you do want your tri-tip to be the absolute star of the dish, try for more complementary sides, rather than extravagant and wildly flavored sides.
Consider serving your tri-tip with a garden salad, roasted mushroom salad, or grilled veggies like brussels sprouts or asparagus if you prefer something light.
If you prefer something heavier, think about potatoes au gratin, roasted potato salad, cheese-baked cauliflower, or creamy cheese pasta.
If you’re looking at cooking another meat alongside tri-tip for a crowd, check out how much brisket per person, or how much pulled pork for a crowd. If you want to look at a different kind of steak try serving marinated skirt steak for a crowd.
Slice Tri-Tip Correctly When Serving!
There it is. The roasted Tri-tip is perfectly cooked, in all its glory. Now, you need to do it justice and serve it beautifully to each of your guests.
Follow these tips to slice it correctly:
- Allow your tri-tip to rest at least 10-15 minutes before slicing it, if not longer if you can!
- Locate where the grains run on the cut of meet. An easy way to tell is cut off a small corner piece. Whichever way the strands go, that is the grain. All you want to do is take a sharp knife and cut right across those lines. Just as if you were serving beef tenderloin for a crowd, sirloin steak, or prime rib too.
- Try to go for thinner slices, so that you can serve 2-4 slices per person based on what other sides you are serving.
- Don’t slice your tri-tip until your 100% ready to serve, otherwise it starts to dry out too easily.
Wrap Up
If you can pull it off, roasted or smoked tri-tip for any size group is an absolute people pleaser. Really, it’s a glorious, tender, and tasty cut of beef. But, you want to be sure you’re the host that’s remembered for their handsome generous servings.
Make sure you follow the rule. Half a pound of cooked tri-tip per person alongside 1-3 sides, and a quarter of a pound of cooked tri-tip with 3+ sides or other meats to serve.
Remember, with raw tri-tip, the raw meat will also weigh 20-30% more than when cooked, as it loses some weight over the cooking process. Give yourself a buffer, as you want there to be a little extra for leftovers, second serves, or if anything goes wrong.
Happy cooking.
