How many shrimp per person

The short answer, for a shrimp cocktail served as an appetiser alongside other food: four to five shrimp per person at 16/20 count, which works out to about a quarter pound of raw shell-on shrimp each.

That is the number to buy against. The rest of this page is about when it is wrong.

What to buy, by headcount

For a standard appetiser service at 16/20 count:

• Four people. 1 lb, about 18 shrimp.
• Six people. 1.5 lb, about 27 shrimp.
• Eight people. 2 lb, about 36 shrimp.
• Twelve people. 3 lb, about 54 shrimp.
• Twenty people. 5 lb, about 90 shrimp.
• Thirty people. 7.5 lb, about 135 shrimp.
• Fifty people. 12 lb, about 216 shrimp.

Round up to the nearest whole bag rather than down. Leftover poached shrimp is a good problem, and running out forty minutes into a party is the kind of thing people remember.

Adjust for size

Count size changes the arithmetic, because you are buying by weight but serving by piece.

• U/12 or U/15 (colossal). Three per person reads as generous. These are large enough that people take one, look at it, and take one more only if they liked it.
• 16/20 (jumbo). Four to five. The default, and the size the dish was designed around.
• 21/25 (extra large). Six to seven. Still respectable on a tray, but the shrimp start to read as ordinary.
• 26/30 and smaller. Do not use these for a cocktail platter. They belong in a salad or a pasta.

More on what these count numbers actually mean and why the marketing words on the bag are meaningless.

The two cases where four per person is too low

No dinner is following. A cocktail party where the shrimp tray is a main event, not a warm-up, doubles consumption. Plan seven to eight per person and do not be surprised if it goes.

The shrimp are the only cold, fresh thing on a heavy table. At a Christmas or Thanksgiving buffet, where everything else is rich and warm, shrimp disappear at roughly one and a half times the usual rate. People go back to them specifically because they are the palate cleanser.

A quiet third case: shrimp go fastest in the first thirty minutes, while people are standing and talking and have not committed to a plate yet. If your tray is placed near where guests arrive, budget higher.

How much ice

The number nobody plans for. You need roughly one pound of ice for every half pound of shrimp, plus enough to build the bed itself.

For twelve people, that is three pounds of shrimp and around eight to ten pounds of ice. Buy it the morning of. Ice bought the night before and left in a home freezer fuses into a block and sublimates measurably.

How much sauce

About two tablespoons per person, so a cup and a half for twelve. Slightly more if you are serving only one sauce, slightly less if there are two or three and people are sampling.

Two sauces served side by side consistently outperform one, and cost you almost nothing. Four sauces worth making.

One tray or two

Above about fifteen guests, split the service. Two smaller trays at opposite ends of a table move faster than one large one, because a single tray creates a queue and a queue makes people take more than they wanted so they do not have to come back.

It also means the second tray can stay in the refrigerator, fully built, and come out when the first is half empty. The cold course stays cold from the first guest to the last.

Common questions

How many pounds of shrimp for 20 people?

About five pounds of raw shell-on 16/20 count shrimp, roughly ninety shrimp, if the platter is an appetiser served alongside other food. Plan closer to eight pounds if no dinner follows.

How many shrimp is a serving?

Four to five 16/20 count shrimp per person as an appetiser, or seven to eight if the shrimp cocktail is the main food being served.

How much ice do I need for a shrimp platter?

About one pound of ice per half pound of shrimp, plus enough to build the bed. For twelve people that is eight to ten pounds. Buy it the morning of the event.