Catering Tips
Thinking of helping out at a residential weekend by doing the catering? Here’s a constantly updating set of hints and tips from people who have done it before to hopefully make your life a lot more straightforward.
The important tip before starting: if you’re playing, it’s probably not a good idea to volunteer to cook. Losing one monster for an hour or so before meals is viable, losing a player isn’t.
Planning and pre-prep
- Bear in mind allergies/intolerances and other dietary requirements at the planning stage!
- You can attempt to bear preferences in mind but you’ll never please everyone. Stay away from anything spicy, don’t put mushrooms in the non-vegetarian meal, don’t bother with anything with bones. However, the majority of people will eat almost anything, especially if it’s got cheese on top.
- You can always have add-ons like hot sauces and cheese to make avoiding allergies etc easier – just be careful to keep them separate and to keep your equipment clean.
- Check site facilities beforehand – fridge/freezer space, worktop space, what type of hobs (electric takes forever to heat up), how big the oven is etc. Sometimes this will be on the site website, other times you’re best off asking someone who has cooked there before.
- Most sites have some equipment but it is not consistent. You will probably want to make sure you have enough pans, baking trays and utensils to make do – then anything in the cupboards is a bonus. If you need bigger pans, ask around.
- Bring your own washing up gloves.
- Bring your own oven gloves.
- There is a trade off between costs to everyone else and effort for you, both in terms of actual food prep and recipe preparation (shopping around for the best prices for example). Decide what you’re happy doing; in 2026 prices, if you can get it under £10 for the most expensive set of meals for the weekend, people will generally be happy to pay (£7-8 is the target).
- Where possible, cook stuff in advance and freeze. Where not possible, cooked and chilled on Thursday will be fine for Saturday night/Sunday morning if you have a good coolbox. Your aim is to do as little cooking on site as you can get away with.
- Don’t forget that thermal capacity is not your friend – if you finish making 15 people’s worth of stew at 10pm on Thursday it will not be ready to go in the fridge until way past your bedtime (even you Dave).
- Foil everything that can be foiled, it helps massively with clean-up.
- Confirm with the treasurer/whoever is managing the tea box who’s getting what (milk, ketchup, squash etc).
- You will need fresh squash. Do not try to make it last over multiple residentials no matter what the Treasurer says.
- Make sure there is foil in the tea box or bring your own, it will greatly simplify clean-up.
- Have a printed list of who is expecting what food, especially breakfasts.
On site
- Sometimes we barely get through 4 pints of milk in a weekend, sometimes 12 pints don’t make it to Sunday breakfast. Make sure someone knows where the nearest supermarket is and plan to do a stock check on Saturday.
- Check everything works on site before you get started to pre-empt any nasty surprises. This doesn’t just mean “does it turn on?” – it can mean “does this grill actually get hot?”
- People who are self catering are likely to want oven space. Group catering traditionally gets priority but it’s something to bear in mind.
- As part of the first OOC brief (usually the Friday night), ask the GMs to give you time to:
- Tell people what the arrangements are for breakfast, including checking themselves off on the list once they’ve eaten – some people will get up very late and some will get up very early. This also helps GMs know who is up/on site.
- Remind people that the kitchen and eating areas are run on a wash, dry, and put it away basis to keep mealtimes simple.
Meals
Breakfast
Bread is a necessity:
- Either buy a mix of brown and white loaves (2 – 3 white: 1 brown seems to work), or best-of-both. One loaf is usually around 18 slices excluding the crusts.
- Most sites have a toaster.
- One tub of butter-like spread will do the weekend. Buy something dairy free so it will work for everyone.
For a basic continental breakfast:
- Jam/peanut butter (if no allergies – pick another nut butter otherwise)/chocolate spread
- Cheese slices
- Pre-packed pain au chocolate
- Ham is a nice add-on if you have spare cash in the budget
A cooked breakfast is appreciated but a lot of work, especially as you have to be up early.
- Sausages: roast on Thursday night at 180 (turn every ten minutes, cook for 40 minutes total), chill. 2 per person per breakfast, let them heat them up if they want to.
- Bacon is generally more expensive than sausages per portion but depends what deals you get. If cooking bacon, beware the bacon (fire) alarm
- Vegetarian sausages are extremely variable in how nice they are.
- Eggs are a good vegetarian option, it’s up to you what cooking methods you offer. If you do eggy bread some weirdos like it with honey. You can always offer to supply the eggs and let people cook their own!
- Porridge is OK to make (big pan, low and slow, whisk occasionally) and can be vegan (use oat milk). Goes well with toast because the same toppings can be used for both.
Lunch
A bigger lunch (e.g. potatoes) is better if breakfast was less substantial (e.g. toast).
- Baked potatoes + coleslaw + beans + cheese + Greek yoghurt/creme fraiche works really well as a low-effort option.
- No more than 6 cans of beans though!
- Hot dog sausages are achievable but need more monitoring and heating the water takes forever.
- If you’re cooking fried onions, cook them on Thursday night and crisp them at lunchtime.
- Self assembly rolls are fairly low effort but quantities can be difficult to manage if everyone is self serving.
Crisps/chocolate bars/fruit will get eaten by the end of the weekend and a good standby filler.
- Multipack of crisp flavours – include S&V or Ready Salted.
- Penguins & Kitkats seem pretty popular (including Lidl/Aldi fake versions).
- 2 x bags of apples and 2 x bags of easy peel oranges cover most people.
Dinner
Stews with good bulking (chickpeas, potatoes etc) that you can just reheat are great, bear in mind that thermal mass means probably a 1.5-2hr reheat from chilled. Don’t forget to consider defrost time – a big tupperware of stew will still be frozen by Saturday dinner time if it’s left in the fridge.
You’ll probably need to do a meat option, a veggie/vegan option, and a special dietary requirements option. The meat option will probably be the one most people choose.
Carbs:
- Bulk cooking rice or pasta is a pain in the backside. Oven rice wasn’t too bad but it depends what else you’re cooking in the oven. Some rice varieties are more resilient to being overcooked (golden sella for example).
- Freeze-dried mash is much easier than real mash. Frozen also works but can be awkward to heat.
- Couscous works really well, just make sure to get frozen pomegranate seeds if using them for jewelling (sultanas are way easier).
- Something bready can also work as an easy side, but avoid if breakfast/lunch have been especially bready too.
It is good practice to include Some Vegetables. If not in the main food offering, a side of mixed frozen veg often does a decent job and doesn’t take long to cook from frozen once the water is hot.
You can re-use your lunch sides if appropriate; for example, it is quite hard to have too much grated cheese. Buy it pre-grated for the sake of your sanity.
