There’s nothing quite like a Yorkshire summer. The sun (eventually) makes an appearance, the garden furniture comes out of the shed, and someone utters those magic words: “Shall we have a barbecue?”
Then comes the tricky part…working out how much meat to actually buy. Too little, and you’re rationing sausages by 2pm. Too much, and you’re eating burgers for a week. After more than 100 years of farming here at Mill Close Farm and decades behind the butcher’s block, we’ve answered this question more times than we can count. So here it is, our definitive guide to feeding a garden party properly.
How Much Meat Per Person? The Butcher’s Rule of Thumb
For a barbecue where meat is the main event (with salads, breads and sides on the table too), plan for 400–500g of raw meat per adult. Here’s how that typically breaks down across the grill:
| Guest | Total meat | What that looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Adult (hearty appetite) | 450–500g | 1 steak or chicken breast, 1 burger, 1–2 sausages |
| Adult (lighter appetite) | 300–400g | 1 burger, 1 sausage, plus a share of something special |
| Child (under 12) | 150–250g | 1 burger or 2 sausages |
A few butcher’s tips worth remembering:
- Variety beats volume. Guests eat less of each item when there’s a good mix, two or three different cuts per person feels generous without the waste.
- Bone-in cuts need more weight. If you’re grilling ribs or chops, add roughly 100g per person to account for the bone.
- All-day gatherings need a top-up. If guests are arriving at lunch and staying through to the evening, budget closer to 600g per adult and stagger your grilling in two rounds.
- Leftovers freeze beautifully, as long as the meat was fresh to begin with. All of our meat is prepared fresh and never previously frozen, so anything uncooked can go straight into the freezer for your next cookout.
Doing the Maths for Your Garden Party
Let’s put that into practice. Say you’re hosting 8 adults and 4 children:
- 8 adults × 450g = 3.6kg
- 4 children × 200g = 0.8kg
- Total: roughly 4.4kg of meat
Sounds like a lot of weighing, calculating and standing at the butcher’s counter? It doesn’t have to be.
The Easy Answer: Our Ready-Made BBQ Meat Box
We built our BBQ Meat Box to take all of the guesswork out of exactly this situation. Every box is hand-prepared by our butchers and packed with grill-ready favourites:
- 6 Farmhouse Sausages
- 6 Pork & Caramelised Onion Sausages
- 4 × 4oz Yorkshire Dales Beef Burgers
- 4 × 4oz Yorkshire Dales Minted Lamb Burgers
- 4 Sticky Maple Chicken Breasts
- 4 × 8oz Aberdeen Angus Sirloin Steaks
That’s a proper spread, sausages for the kids, burgers for the crowd-pleasers, sticky maple chicken for something a bit different, and Aberdeen Angus sirloins for the grill master to show off with. One box comfortably feeds 6–8 adults at a garden party, or a family of four across two weekend barbecues (remember, it arrives fresh, so you can freeze half for later).
Hosting a bigger do? Simply order two boxes, or browse our full shop to add extra steaks, chops and kebabs to your order.
Quick-Fire BBQ Tips From Our Butchers
- Take meat out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Room-temperature meat cooks more evenly, especially steaks.
- Don’t rush the coals. Wait until they’re glowing grey with no flames before anything touches the grill.
- Sausages first, low and slow. Position them at the cooler edge of the grill and turn often.
- Rest your steaks. Give those Aberdeen Angus sirloins 5 minutes under foil after cooking, it makes all the difference.
- One set of tongs for raw, one for cooked. The simplest food-safety rule there is.
Sorted for Summer
So there it is: 400–500g per adult, a good variety of cuts, and a butcher you can trust. Or skip the maths entirely and let us do the work, your BBQ Meat Box is freshly prepared, packed by hand, and available for delivery or farm shop collection. Just choose your option at checkout, fire up the grill, and enjoy your summer the Yorkshire way.
The Yorkshire Dales Meat Company is family-owned and run by the Knox family, farming near Patrick Brompton in Wensleydale for over 100 years. Locally reared. Naturally fed. Professionally butchered.
