How do you get all the food you are serving for dinner hot at the same time?

Question

I always remember as a child the food at dinner was all on the table for our family of six to help themselves, and the food was always HOT. Nowadays, I can't get any of the food to remain hot. Once it hits the table, it cools off immediately. Maybe my parents had some kind of trick to make this happen (they are both gone) but it beats me how they did it. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I don't know why the food cools off when it hits the table, but here are some tips to get a hot meal on the table for a crowd at a holiday dinner.

First of all, get the cold dishes ready. Put the cranberry sauce, relish tray, and fruit salads in pretty serving dishes ahead of time. Wrap and refrigerate. Decide what to do with the butter, the coffee cream and all the little details that will slow you down and confuse you at the last minute. Get the serving utensils together for these items.

You can make many things ahead of time and reheat them without loss of quality. I have a three compartment chafing dish that I use for vegetables. I cook the vegetables, season them, and put them in the glass inserts from the chafing dish. Then I wrap the dishes in foil and refrigerate. Two hours before serving, I put these cold veggies, plus other preprepared casseroles in a 275 oven and forget them. They are perfect and hot every time. Mashed potatoes, for example, reheat beautifully if you put a bit of milk and a handful of grated cheddar cheese over them. Just wrap everthing securely in foil. Basically, I prepare everything in advance and reheat except the rolls and the turkey.

Other tips: Crockpots are great to keep gravy hot for a crowd. Electric skillets hold foods at serving temps and will reheat certain foods. If you cook the turkey every year, buy an electric roaster and cook the turkey in the laundry room or even on a table in the garage. This frees up the oven.

Don't forget the home remedies. Heavy paper grocery sacks are great insulators. Slide a pan of hot rolls inside a paper grocery bag and close it with a clothes pin or clip. The rolls will stay hot about twenty minutes. When you take a foil wrapped casserole from the oven, lay a flat sack or two on top of the dish. This simple trick holds the heat in. Newspapers work for this, too.

Stack foil wrapped hot casseroles such as stuffing, green bean casserole or other such dishes in a large ice chest with pieces of heavy card board in between each dish. Your dishes will stay hot for two hours if you don't bother them. Hope some of these ideas help. I was a caterer for many years, and I have cooked and served foods under every condition possible.

Answer 2

Good question and it's not easy to answer. Sometimes when there's a lot of activity going on with the meal I write down the desired time for everything to be finished then I take each individual dish and write down the time it should started, ie: be placed in the oven or turned on (top of stove) so everything is done at basically the same time. It sounds stupid and like I'm too stupid to do the math in my head but it sure makes it easier and everything is piping hot when it's served. (make sure EVERYONE is already at the table before anything comes out.

Answer 3

You can keep them hot in a slow oven 200 ' F ... or if you do not wish to use your oven (on a hot summer day, say) you can keep things hot in dishes or pans over hot water...and there are food warmers; even tea cosies!

Be assured that to deliver the whole meal hot is one of those thing every cook tries for, so don't be discouraged.

The English have solved that problem with regards to toast for breakfast by serving it cold, which is considered normal, and then offering butter, jam, honey etc to spread on it. The do not serve it warm and buttered as do Americans ..

Having food hot to serve is not universal ... when I was travelling in Venice I found bar snacks in restaurants which were not served hot ..... no one seemed to mind, not to the extent of being rude to the restaurant staff .... There are places in this world where people are very grateful to have something to eat, regardless of the temperature at which it is served.. Cheers!

Answer 4

Hi I often make vegan dishes and this is considered by friends one of the best, they didnt even notice the lack of meat!!! Its because its soo yummy! I sort of made it up so I have no recipe its kinda suck it and see but these arthe general amounts! ( This can also be easly made in a batch wraped and then frozen, defrosts in around 2 minutes and it still tastes great!!) Right its a parsnip and cashew nut based nut roast 5 Large parsnips cooked and mashed ( can add more for stroger flavour) 5 carrots grated 3 cloves garlic ( or to your own tastes, I love garlic so often add more) A large bag of mixed chopped nuts A large bag of whole cashew nuts ( I add mushrooms but this can easily be left out) If you like a fruity taste a handful of crandberries is always welcome, fresh or dried Any other nuts that you want to include salt pepper mixed italian herbs ( all to suit your tastes) You can bind it with egg, but in this case warm water ) This all needs mixing together and if the mixture is too wet sprinkle in some flour until you have a sticky bread dough consistancy Greace and line a baking tray, and cook at 180 degrees for around 30 minutes, although the timeing always varys with mine, so i go on the golden rule, if its golden and when a knife come out clean ( with put in the middle) its done, if its golden but the knife is not clean cover it in tin foil and put it back in the oven. Hope this helped kx

Answer 5

Firstly, it depends on the type of dining ware you are using, dear. Those with larger surface area like plates will allow the food to cool down faster. Also, the type of material will affect the duration heat is retained. Eg: claypot is able to retain heat well. As such, meat or food served in it is still warm after a long time. On the other hand, food served in metal plates will cool faster as heat travels from the food to metal plate to table and dissipates off.

Answer 6

I try to make sure that first off all my serving dishes are warm before I serve the food in them, by placing them in the oven at its lowest temp, or warming them in the micrwave for about two mins. And I either place hot mitts or marble warming plates under the dishes.
You can aslo buy a type plastic dish that have two layers to it, that when you heat it up in the microwave it will hold heat in the air in between the layers for a good while.

Answer 7

I have everything done the day before and placed in their proper serving bowl / plate. Everything has plastic wrap then tinfoil on top and its all in the over warming and ready to serve. I simply remove the tinfoil and plastic wrap and everyone digs in.

I do not put everything on the table...we serve buffet style so the table is not so crowded. We keep the breads, butter and relish trays on the table only.

If someone says you can't make something ahead of time then they simply did not want it to work out badly enough... I make my mashed potatoes sometimes 3 days in advance... then heating them in the over works fabulous !!!
No more hectic day for me, it was done ahead of time. Experiment and see what works for you and stick with it. Cooking is all basically opinion... do what tastes right to you! : )

Answer 8

Since the turkey takes up the bulk of the oven, everything else is on the stove staying warm, and when I run out of burner space, things that can be nuked are in microwave safe bowls.

My great aunts and grandma had the tiniest stoves, and no microwave. I don't know how they did it either.

Answer 9

Chafing dishes and hot plates is your best bet when serving a buffet style dinner!!!

Answer 10

Keep everything on the stove and then call everyone. When they sit down then serve.