How many whole fryer chickens should I buy if I'm making chicken pot pie for 30 people?

Question

I'm making one big pot of the filling and serving it in cereal bowls, topped with a warm flakey biscuit.

I will boil and debone the chickens, then make the pot pie filling from the remaining broth. How many chickens/pounds of chicken should I buy?

Answer 1

3-4.
You'll lose almost 50% of the weight after it's cooked & cleaned.
For a pot pie you only need to figure 2 ounces or so per portion.

Answer 2

I would suggest 8 chickens (about 24-25 pounds) with 6 chickens (about 18 pounds) at a minimum.

Here's why:
4 ounces of meat per person would be pretty generous
so for 30 people that's 120 ounces (7.5 pounds of chicken meat). I'm assuming you're using the light and dark meat.

If you buy whole chickens most of the weight is bones and fat, about 70% as a round number so you need about 25 pounds of fryeres as a quick guess... which is about 8 to 9 whole birds since each bird weights about 3 pounds each.

Does 8 to 9 chickens make sense?
If you were to serve roasted chickens and each person received a 1/4 of a chicken then 8 chickens would give you 32 servings (quarters). So 8 chickens would be quite generous for a pot pie.

You can actually use fewer chickens since a pot pie contains a lot of other "fillers". So you can probably go down to 6 chickens if you assume 1 whole chicken is enough for 5 people. That's up to you to decide.

Answer 3

Chicken Pot Pie For 40 People:

Ingredients:
4-5 chickens (stewing chickens)
7 1/2 lb. of potatoes
2 raw carrots
2 bags frozen peas
4 tomatoes
1/2 c. chopped onion
2 c. celery
2 can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup
2 can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken & Herbs Soup
Pastry for 9-inch pie crusts

Preparation:
Cook chicken, debone and skin and cut into chunks. Cook potatoes cut in cubes.

Chop onion, tomatoes and celery add with parsley and tomato chunks. Cook the peas a little. Drain. Mix all of the above in large bowl with heated and cooled soups. Add salt and white pepper to taste.

Line pie pan with pastry and refrigerate until ready.

Pour into pie crust. Put top crust on pie, cut 4 slits in the crust. Brush with beaten egg wash.

Bake on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

Note:
Approximately 4 double batches of pie dough, depending on having top and bottom crusts.

hope this helps. enjoy.

Answer 4

Chicken pot pie.

Answer 5

I would use at least 10-12 whole chickens, cut into quarters. This should give you enough shredded chicken for 30 servings plus 2nds.

Answer 6

Each fryer ( 2 to 3 lbs. avg.), should yield enough meat to feed 6 people, therefore I would figure 5 chickens or about 15 lbs. ???

Answer 7

U need to buy about 6 chickens for this meal to come out good ... run about 3 lbs a piece and it should give u plenty of meat and u will enjoy it...

Answer 8

i think if you use about 8 to10 whole fryers it should be more then enough maybe even for second helpings

Answer 9

15 chicken breasts approx