Nacho Bar for a large graduation party or wedding is an easy idea and massively popular with guests. All the amounts and measurements you need to buy and prepare are listed here for you!
As you have read about in past wedding posts, we had four different food stations at the wedding.
And finally, the Nacho Bar!
I loved that the bride and groom picked such simple and fun food for all of their choices. They are a young, easy-going couple and their food stations reflected that side of them perfectly! Feeding your guests is one of the most expensive parts of a wedding, so we made sure that though the food was simple, there was a wide variety of food available and a lot of it! No one left being hungry 🙂
We had the four food stations scattered around the room, one on each wall, which kept an even distribution of hungry guests around the room and not a mad rush in one particular section of the reception space. The picture below shows the nacho bar against the far wall. It was taken at the end of the evening so you could actually see the space 🙂 It was a crowded, amazing party and would have been hard to get a decent picture before it cleared out a bit.
So what does a Nacho Bar for 150 people look like when you are shopping? Here is our list of what we bought and how the amounts ended up. Keep in mind, that nachos were not the only food at the reception, so if you are only serving nachos, you might want higher amounts.
- Tortilla chips – 15 bags
- Nacho cheese sauce – 2 large cans from Sam’s club, 6 lbs in each can
- Seasoned ground beef – 15 pounds (we cooked, seasoned and froze it ahead of time)
- Refried beans – 10 – 15 ounce cans
- Sour Cream – 5 lb
- Salsa – 140 ounce jug (used about half)
- Guacamole – 8 containers of store-bought fresh guacamole
- Jalapeños – 1 gallon (used about half)
- Olives – 25 ounces
To keep it all warm during the reception, we had a buffet style crock pot that had three different warmers. One for the meat, one for the beans and one for the nacho cheese. I had wonderful volunteers who worked hard all night keeping all the supplies fully stocked for the guests. We served it in these cute food trays and it was a complete success!
What a beautiful dreamy setting.
Such a fun (and yummy) idea!
Do you mind sharing the cost of this?
Hi Maureen! This was a few years ago so I don’t have the budget info on that anymore. So sorry
Do you by chance remember what size the bags of chips were?
Hey Nicole! I think they were around 15 ounces or so
Hi I just saw this thread. My sister is wanting to do this as well and I was wondering, how much (roughly) did you spend for the food?
For all of the food or just for the nacho bar?
15 lbs beef for 150 guests? And that was enough? So you served a little over an ounce for each guest? Since a lb of meat is about 13 ounces after cooked.
Hi Karma! We had small containers and yes, that was more than enough. Also remember, that we had other food available at the wedding so it was not the only food being served.