Throwing A Party? This Is How Many Sliders You Need Per Person

Possibly the trickiest part of hosting a party is preparing enough refreshments to satisfy a crowd without overdoing it. Ideally, there'll be enough spicy, creamy buffalo chicken dip for everyone to have seconds with minimal leftovers, but how can you be sure? The best place to start when calculating cocktails-per-person or how many sliders to prepare is knowing how much the average person will eat versus the length of your party. You'll need more refreshments for an all-day shindig than an evening soiree featuring board games.

The thing with sliders is that no adult eats just one. In fact, many restaurants plate two to three per serving, which is a good guideline to use when determining how many you need to prepare. If your event is meant to last just two or three hours, one serving of sliders per person should be plenty, especially if there's more food. Five to six hours, however, means everyone will most likely be looking for a second helping of savory Philly cheesesteak sliders to enjoy alongside their potato salad.

Once you've decided whether to make one or two servings per person, the rest is simple math. If there are 10 people in attendance (including you), 30 sliders ensures everyone can enjoy at least one serving, while 60 bumps that up to two. You can probably make less if you plan to make a hearty recipe piled with toppings, but we recommend keeping things simple so your sliders are easy to eat and relatively mess-free.

Once you've calculated how many sliders to make for your party, the number may seem more than a little intimidating. After all, assembling 30 to 60 sandwiches is a time-consuming task, regardless of their size. That's one reason it's important to make sure your numbers are on point — sliders are a real crowd-pleaser, but making too many is a time-waster, and making too few means stepping away for an extended period to make more. While it's always wise to have a back-up plan when throwing a dinner party, it's also practical to know how to batch-make sliders to reserve your energy for entertaining guests.

If you know how to whip up a batch of breakfast sliders for holiday brunch, you'll know it's fairly easy to modify this recipe for any theme or meal of the day — eggs and cheese for breakfast, sloppy joes for a Super Bowl party, or eggplant Parmesan for a meat-free Monday. The key is using dinner rolls that are connected at the edges, such as King's Hawaiian sweet rolls. This style of rolls separates easily into two big sheets of roll tops and bottoms, allowing you to tuck the bottoms into a casserole dish, assemble the slider fillings in each little section, and press the top into place. From there, all you need is a drizzle of compound butter and a round in the oven to get everything toasted to perfection. To serve, use the edge of a spatula to gently separate the sliders along the edges of each roll and "slide" them onto a serving platter.