Tips for Making Business Catering Affordable

Business is business. You have deadlines you need to meet and people to impress. Your professional world doesn’t have to be all work and no play, however. Affordable business catering shows employees, clients and colleagues how much you appreciate them.

Keep your Business Catering Menu Simple

If you do, you will have enough money to feed your employees, colleagues and clients. First, set a budget. Then, use at least one of these ideas to guide your meal preparation.  

1. Serve simple entrées and sides.  

Meals with as few ingredients as possible will cost less than extravagant gourmet dinners. For instance, you could provide meat, potatoes and veggies or provide hot meat sandwiches. Some pasta dinners don’t cost much to prepare and serve either.

Provide enough of a variety of both plant- and non-plant-based foods to suit dietary needs, and you can accommodate for potential allergies. However, don’t plan menus that require complex sets of ingredients. Some meats, for example, just require salt, pepper or gravy for flavor.

2. Provide a buffet-style meal.

If you do serve a buffet, make sure you keep the hot food at the proper temperature. Keep the cold items on ice. Buffets work great when you don’t know exactly how many people will attend but at least have a maximum number in mind. One business catering service typically provided by professionals includes helping you calculate food count.

Examples of buffet items:            

• Fish — You do not need to flavor it with a fancy sauce. Just some butter or lemon on it and a bit of salt would work. Salmon or white fishes cost less than other types of seafood.
• Potatoes — For affordable business catering, the roasted potato nuggets flavored with olive oil and rosemary seem to be popular enough. Mashed potatoes is another inexpensive option that seems to please a mass of people.
• Roast Beef — Perhaps you can serve it with braised mushrooms or a brown gravy. It’s one item that complements baked potatoes quite well.
• Vegan Pisto — You can request this made in a variety of ways. Sometimes, you find it served with zucchini, roasted tomatoes, onions and black garlic.
• Caesar Salad — This classic just requires some romaine lettuces, grated Parmesan cheese and croutons. It is one of the simplest salads you can ever serve, which will keep your catering costs affordable.

3. Serve lunch instead of dinner.

Business lunches generally require less expensive ingredients than a night-time meal. You can prepare small sandwiches, and it allows you to provide more varieties for less money. For instance, maybe some people would prefer tuna to salmon. Others might want sliced ham, turkey or chicken.

Affordable business catering for lunch events often includes as thin of slices of meat as possible but still enough substance to satisfy your guests. You can also add fruit on the table or maybe put out some brownies or cookies or any item from the sample menu you like.

4. Spread out some appetizers.

Some hot and cold canapes might last you for several hours. Examples of such include the rice paper rolls and the “Bang Bang Chicken” skewers. Maybe include some alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages depending on the time of day and the occasion. You also could set out mini bagels, fresh fruit and have vegetarian versions of most appetizers made.

5. Consider serving breakfast.

One way to keep your catering meal simple is serve foods people can pick up in their hands and eat. Breakfast meals could save you money. This time of the day, you could serve eggs, sausage, bacon or bagels, and fresh fruit. You could also make it a brunch and serve some of the sandwich or meat canopies normally served at lunch.

6. Repurpose leftovers.

This won’t necessarily reduce the money you do spend on business catering. However, it will at least save the food you serve and make it available for multi-day events. If you offer meals to employees as part of their fringe benefits, you can also schedule leftovers into those meal plans.

By the way, serving leftovers works best if you keep cold meat separate from the dressings and sauces. Make sure you have the condiments stored separately and not have the sandwiches premade.

If you don't see what you are looking for in our sample menu, please contact us.

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