Recipes for Feeding People at a Homeless Shelter (2024)

November 7, 2010

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Vi Johnson
Silver Post Medal for All Time! 288Posts

July 24, 2008

November 7, 2010

Best Answer

Goulash, stew (using hamburger instead of stew meat), sloppy joes and potato salad. Casserole dishes can be made using considerably less meat than called for. For dessert cake will do the job. If a group like Ladies Aid or Circle is doing this the group could decide on one type of casserole and dessert, and every member could be assigned to bring either the casserole or dessert, and there should probably be some type of bread and margarine. One member could bring those items.

Best Answer

My late mother once worked at a conference centre that was situated in the country. Very simple fare and inexpensive foods. The kitchen typed out and copied some of the recipes they would make so I've got a bunch of them. I'll type one out for you and then give you a list of the others. If you are interested in the names of some of the recipes let me know and I'll type them out for you too.

Meat and Noodle Casserole
Serves 56

8 pounds ground beef
3 large green peppers, diced
4 large ribs celery, diced
3 medium onions, chopped
4 packages medium noodles
8 cans (10 ounces each) tomato soup
4 cans (10 ounces each) cream of chicken soup
4 cans (10 ounces each) cream of mushroom soup

Brown meat, add pepper, celery and onion. Cook noodles, drain and add to meat mixture along with soups. Pout in casseroles and bake 30 minutes in medium oven.

Other recipes include:
Meat Loaf (serves 50)
Ham Casserole (serves 50)
Chili Con Carne (serves 50)
Tuna Casserole (served 55)
Salmon Loaf with Sauce (serves 48)
Home Baked Beans (serves 20)
Angel Food Cake Surprise (serves 48)
Cherry Delight (serves 48)
Chocolate Dessert (serves 20-24)
Jello Supreme (serves 45)
Pineapple Coleslaw (serves 48)
Jellied Salad (serves 48)

Best Answer

I have served as lead cook at the local homeless shelter for men. We usually serve about 40 guys. Here are two doable dessert recipes that were a big hit. You don't have to be a cook to make them and they are great comfort food.

Peach cobbler - make this in a couple of big hotel pans. Ingredients below serve 40.
6 sticks butter, melt 3 sticks in each of 2 pans
Make batter as follows.
6 C flour
2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. baking powder
6 C whole milk
5 C sugar mixed with 2 tsp. cinnamon
Mix batter until smooth and pour directly over the butter, dividing batter between 2 pans.
5 cans sliced peaches (29 oz.) in heavy syrup, do not drain.
Pour peaches directly over the batter, dividing between the 2 pans.
Sprinkle 1 C sugar over top, dividing between the 2 pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 60 minutes. Baking time will vary depending upon the width and depth of your pans.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Crescent roll apple dumplings. Will serve 40. As with the peach cobble, no cooking expertise is required.
5 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths.
5 packages refrigerated crescent roll dough
Wrap each of the 40 apple wedges in each of the 40 crescent triangles, pressing to seal. Place in hotel pans in single layer.
Make sauce as follows:
In saucepan mix
4 C sugar
2 1/2 C butter ( 5 sticks)
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Pour sauce over dumplings.
48 to 60 oz. mountain dew.
Pour mountain dew over top.
Oven 350 degrees. Bake 45 minutes. Magic happens while they bake. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Best Answer

Here is a recipe called picante chicken. It has two ingredients: boneless skinless chicken breasts and picante sauce. The breasts are simmered on top of the stove for about 25 minutes in the picante sauce. Use about 1/3 C of picante per breast. This works best if the chicken is room temperature before dropping into the picante. I did this for 40 guys at our local shelter and it was easy and they liked it. I served with Spanish rice, so the extra picante was spooned over the rice on request.

April 1, 2017

My church feeds a homeless mission in our area. We are small and money is tight. I need some ideas on how we can feed between 50-60 men once a month.

Looks like Thrifty Fun has a thread for Recipes for Homeless!

- Tuna sandwiches
- Beans
- Potato Salad
- Sloppy Joes
- And so forth.

Reference,

www.thriftyfun.com/tf87843867.tip.html

Rice and beans is a cheap, complete meal. You want to stay away from expensive cuts of meat, chicken tenders, and fish fillets. Canned salmon is also a good choice. What about spaghetti and meat sauce?

Since you will be doing this on an on-going basis I have offered several suggestions (most all suggestions have been used by my group at one time or other).
We usually try to go with cheap but easy dinners so many times that means HoBo dinners. These are so easy and you can add almost any vegetable available and you can also add variety by using different ingredients. Just use a black marker and note one or more different ingredient on the outside of packet.
Here are a couple of links just in case you are not familiar with making hobo dinners (you may have to expand on ingredients to the number you need):

www.radacutlery.com/.../

busycreatingmemories.com/.../

Here is a site that we use a lot for getting ideas for large groups:

www.angelfire.com/.../Servesfiftyindex.html

Here are some ideas (actual costs may not be correct) but some ideas we use:

www.thesimpledollar.com/.../

Here is a great recipe for something a little different:

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP FOR 32 PEOPLE
2 1/2 gallons water
8 oz. chicken base
4 oz. butter
3 lb. chicken
2 lb. medium noodles
2 tsp. parsley flakes
4 oz. chopped pimento
1 tsp. celery salt
1 tsp. salt and pepper mix

Bring water to boil. Add chicken base, butter, and cut-up chicken to water. Cook approximately 35 minutes. Add noodles, parsley flakes, pimento, celery salt and salt and pepper mix and cook approximately 30 minutes (until noodles are tender).
Serves 32 9-ounce portions.

Soups, stews, chicken dumpling soup :) If you want to get fancy, you can make large amounts of curry and rice for very little money:

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked instant white rice
3 3/4 cups water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Dash ground red pepper (cayenne)
1 small onion, coarsely chopped (about 1/3 cup)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
6 small red potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch cubes (2 cups)
2 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces (3/4 cup)
1 extra-large vegetarian vegetable bouillon cube
1/2 medium red bell pepper, coarsely chopped (1/2 cup)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Cook rice in 2 cups of the water as directed on package.

In 3-quart saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat until hot. Add curry powder, salt, cumin and ground red pepper; cook and stir 1 minute. Add onion and garlic; cook and stir 1 minute longer.

Add potatoes, carrots, bouillon cube and 1 1/2 cups of the remaining water. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium; cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Add bell pepper; cover and simmer 4 to 6 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender.

In small bowl, mix remaining 1/4 cup water and the flour until smooth. Add to saucepan; cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens. Boil and stir 1 minute. Serve over rice.

(Above is a recipe for 4)

Spaghetti with meat sauce is cheap, accompanied with garlic bread made from regular loaf bread. Find each on sale and use coupons along with sale price.

Chili, speghetti, chicken and rice soup, baked potato bar, potato soup, mac and cheese, mac and tuna casserole.

The inexpensive brands of canned salmon are very nutritious and one can will feed several people when mixed with crackers, milk and egg, then fried as cakes. Also, spaghetti noodles can be stretched with less pasta sauce and mixed.

Erika, I loved your post, everything made with that special ingredient- lurve! I feed up to 50 mixed nationalities in southern Spain,choosing recipes are sometimes difficult because of this mix.
Sometimes I receive gifts of food, amazing fresh vegetables and chicken breast etc., other times I can get handed a box of out of date dry goods-because that is what they think our friends are worth and they cannot bring themselves to admit they buy too much- salves a conscience! However, nothing is wasted- chickens dont mind out of date grains and they give lovely eggs to make bread pudding with.. hahaha. xx

Have Cooked for the homeless for a year now, Cook Breakfast Casserole several times, Cook meats ( ham and bacon, or beef) Layer shredded potatoes and meat and cheese. top with Eggs milk and seasoning cover and bake 350 for 1 hour depending on pan size.

Step 1
Cook meats ( bacon, ham, sausage or ground beef)And drain.

Step 2
Layer frozen shredded potatoes , meal and cheddar cheese. Mix milk eggs and seasoning and pour over.

Step 3
Bake 350, for one hour or until done

Im the ED here at Love Wins Community Engagement Center (formerly Love Wins Ministries), and yes, I feel all of this. We serve breakfast and lunch daily for 50-80 people. We play a lot of iron chef with donated ingredients and really try to give our folks the best that we can. Some days are simply tuna with crackers, macaroni and cheese, lima beans with corn (a favorite here), and fresh mixed green salad. Other days we have totally different things, but every day we think what are we making for diabetics, our vegetarians, our non-pork eating friends, our friends without teeth, then we also think about who is there with certain allergies. We create food with this in mind. Its an amazing balance, but Im so proud that we can do it.

P.s. root vegetable stew is a life saver around here, and a great way to use the dehydrated mashed potatoes that people donate as a thickener. Potatoes, onions, carrots, sautee the onions, add broth (we keep veggie scraps in the freezer to make broth), add root veggies (turnips and parsnips work well too), add whatever seasoning you have that makes food taste good. Add meat if you have some (here a small amount can go a long way). When veggies are ready, thicken with the dehydrated potato flakes. Taste and season to style desired. This is the base recipe, add whatever you have to flavor it your way and utilize fresh vegetables. :)

Erica thank you. We feed 70 to 100 people every Sunday in a park. I am responsible or at least 2 hot meals per month. I try to find good food I would feed my family ( these people are). I am always looking for good culturally appropriate food last month I did picadillo which was inexpensive and so good any ideas are so appreciated tired of sloppy Joes and pasta salad

September 18, 2017

How can I feed about 200 homeless people breakfast on a budget?

Feeding 200 people on a budget.

• I would do scrambled eggs, sausages,and toast or english muffins.
• Oatmeal with fruit and nuts.
• You could serve breakfast casseroles recipes on pininterest.
• Try muffins cheaper homemade.
• Pancakes and sausages go a long way as well.

Oatmeal is very cheap. You can thicken (and yummy) it up by adding half a tablespoon of peanut butter (also cheap in large quantities) and add fruit bits. The nut butter makes it more dense and fills you up well.

Egg scramble with frozen spinach, onions and black beans. Also filling and cheap. Serve with a side of bread.

Hopefully this breakfast is going to be prepared and served in a "commercial" size/style kitchen with ovens and large pots/pans.

Step 1
Service 200 people at one sitting is quite a job and takes a lot of planning so I hope there are other people helping with the set up of tables/chairs/serving/and control.

Step 2
As a general rule we have always found that baked food is easier to prepare/serve than pots or pan cooking.

Step 3
Also, breakfast may mean "sausage/eggs/pancakes" to most people but, from experience, I have found that is not always the case with homeless people.

Step 4
Generally, non-breakfast foods go faster than the usual breakfast items so it may be a good idea to think "out-side the box" a little in this type of situation.

Step 5
I would suggest that no matter what type of food you serve to have plenty of gravy available. Just any good gravy will suffice. Here is one recipe we use and rarely have any leftovers. These recipes are for 48-50 people so you can expand if necessary. www.angelfire.com/.../xH1gravy.html

Step 6
Scrambled eggs are much easier if you use the oven and they are easy to portion into squares. here are two very good recipes for 100 servings. lotsofinfo.tripod.com/H32eggs100.htm

Step 7
lotsofinfo.tripod.com/H53scrambledeggs.htm

Step 8
Baked oatmeal is good (but - not everybody likes oatmeal). www.angelfire.com/.../xSF1bakedoatmeal.htm

Step 9
Why not think about something like a rice casserole? It will go very fast especially if you have gravy. Here is a recipe if you want to try it. Easy Rice and Ham Casserole - www.angelfire.com/.../xSF1ricecasserole.htm

Step 10
If you fix something like apple crisp or peach cobbler you will have no left overs. www.angelfire.com/.../xSF52applecrisp.html

Step 11
it would be nice if you had someone making drop biscuits and serving gravy.

One very important fact: Do not use aluminum pans when preparing scrambled eggs!
THE ALUMINUM WILL TURN THE EGGS GREEN!

Smaller groups here in the area make peanut butter sandwiches with water bottles, fruit and a small care kit (with essentials like: toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash) and a blanket or clothing article.

I have worked with similar accommodations also and that is why I recommend working with smaller amounts so they can be done at home and carried in the same baking pan to the site.

People who come to this type of service will usually like food with substance such as not so just breakfast type dishes as many times those are the most difficult to keep warm/fresh. You may get more people to volunteer making a pot of potato chowder/soup than a pot of oatmeal that will not taste near as good.
Breakfast - they love peach/apple cobbler or hash browns that are still good even if not piping hot.
Hope you have some of the double Sterno pans that keep food reasonably hot.
Good luck and as my mother always told me - do everything with a smile and enjoy what you are doing.

Oatmeal is cheap and filling. Eggs, any 'salads' like hamsalad, eggsalad, etc. Biscuits and gravy. Grits and creamed rice are good and cheap.

eggs are still the most inexpensive source of protein at roughly 10cents each and nutritional item to eat
hard boiled eggs can be made ahead kept refrigerated till needed and distributed easily, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are easy to make and distribute too. small juice boxes would go well
so eggs being ten cents, bread pbj sandwich and juice pack would equal under $1.00 per person

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