How Much Pulled Pork Per Person — A Simple to Use Calculator and Serving Sizes Guide

Below is an incredibly simple and user-friendly calculator to help you determine precisely how much pulled pork you need per person for your next gathering, and how much raw pork butt or pork shoulder you need to buy.

Following the calculator, you’ll find a set of easy-to-read tables. These tables serve as a quick reference guide, allowing you to gauge quantities based on the number of guests you expect. They are perfect for those who prefer a more visual approach to planning.

The last part of the article thoroughly explains the logic behind the numbers in our calculator and tables, ensuring you understand the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’ This way, you’ll be equipped with the tools and the knowledge to make informed decisions for any future pulled-pork-centric events.

Calculator for How Much Pulled Pork per Person

Here is the simple to use calculator that will tell you how much pulled pork you need per person and the entire party as a whole. Instructions are below the calculator.

To use the calculator, simply:

1. Decide if you wish to know how many pounds of pulled pork per person, or how many grams and kilograms, then click the red button to select the units.
2. Enter the number of adults you are feeding.
3. Enter the portion size of cooked pulled pork per adult, (default is our recommendation of 1/3 lb.)
4. Enter the number of children you are feeding.
5. Enter the portion size of cooked pulled pork per child, (default is our recommendation of 1/4 lb.)
6. Enter your expected yield, (default 50% remaining, taken from my experience.)
7. Read off the ‘Meat to Buy’ value as the weight of pork butt or shoulder you need to buy and cook.

At a Glance Tables of Pulled Pork for Different Size Groups

Here are two tables for how much pulled pork per person with predetermined quantities for specific numbers of adults and children.

To help make it fit onto a smartphone mobile screen, I had to make it two tables, one for adults and another for children.

How Much You Need for the Adults

How Much You Need for the Children

You can figure out the pork you need to buy for any number of guests by adding what you need from different rows in these charts. If you have 18 adults, add the pork for 1, 2, 5, and 10 adults because 1 + 2 + 5 + 10 = 18. Simple.

Oh, but heaven help you if 100 kids are coming to your place for pulled pork.

Explanations and a Bit of Math

From here, I explain the logic behind the numbers in our calculator and tables and go into the simple math used.

You enjoy sharing your culinary creations with those who appreciate them, right? Naturally — it’s not just for our own satisfaction!

As generous hosts, we always aim to ensure our guests are well-fed, even if it means we get a bit less. (This doesn’t include those ‘test’ bites or the accidental morsels that fall off the platter – those bits we couldn’t possibly serve but also can’t let go to waste.)

If you’re fed up with skimping on servings or shortchanging yourself, the following math and explanations are your solution. By the end, you’ll understand exactly how much raw pork is needed and why, to ensure everyone enjoys a hearty serving of cooked pulled pork.

Let’s begin with a key fact…

Cooked Pork Weighs Half as Much as Raw Pork

If you’ve ever cooked meat (or watched Seinfeld), you’re familiar with the concept of shrinkage.

You’ve no doubt noticed that those hamburger patties that look like they’ll crush your buns come off the grill much smaller than they went on. That’s because meat loses moisture from the pressure of contracting fibers, squeezing it out.

It’s the same story with raw pork, and pork shoulder or pork butt, in particular, which is the source of pulled pork. The shoulder is quite fatty before it’s cooked, which is part of why it’s so dang delicious. Fat = flavor! With all that fat, there is a lot of moisture — and weight — to lose.

Amazingly, you can lose over 40% of the initial mass of your raw pork when you cook it. Admittedly you do add some weight back when you add sauce during pulling your pork. But this is minimal compared to the loss.

So for the sake of simplicity in our calculations, we’ll round it to an even 50% loss. The worst that can happen is you have a little extra, and that’s never a bad thing.

So the deal is: You need to buy double the amount of raw pork, that you’ll need to serve cooked due to trimming, bone removal and shrinkage during cooking.

And hey, always buy more than you need because leftover pulled pork has so many uses. And we’ve a guide on how to reheat pulled pork the best way that you can check out.

Pulled Pork Single Portion Size to Serve Adults and Children

Of course, this is rather a matter of opinion. There will always be those who want more and those who want less.

Based on personal experience and the consensus among pitmasters and pork fans, you should plan on serving:

• 1/3 lb., or 5 oz., or 150 grams of cooked pulled pork per adult.
• 1/4 lb., or 4 oz., or 110 grams of cooked pulled pork per child.

Remember, that’s the cooked weight, not the raw weight. That means, per person, you’ll need 2/3 lb of raw pork per adult and 1/2 lb per child.

Now, let’s make simple work of figuring out how much pork to buy per person when company is coming, by using some simple math.

A Simple Formula for How Much Raw Pork to Buy

Math? Dammit. Well, it’s meat math, so I guess I don’t mind so much. Here is the formula you need to calculate the quantity of raw pork you’ll need to purchase to feed any combination of kids and adults.

You will work out the sum of the number of adults times a third of a pound and the number of children times a quarter of a pound. Then, multiply that total by two, and that’s the weight in pounds of the raw pork you’ll want to buy.

The formula looks like this, with A representing no. of Adults and C representing no. of Children:

((A × 1/3) + (C × 1/4)) × 2 = Pounds of Raw Pork Needed

Let’s try an example. Imagine you’ve invited five couples over, and they have six kids between them. So that’s 10 adults (A = 10) and 6 children (C = 6). Subbing these values into our formula, we get:

((10 × 1/3) + (6 × 1/4)) x 2 = Pounds of Raw Pork Needed

Which becomes

(3.3 + 1.5) × 2 = Pounds of Raw Pork Needed

And that turns into

4.8 × 2 = 9.6 pounds of raw pork.

Easy-peasy.

Other Things to Consider

There are no set rules to anything about barbecue, outside of safe cooking temperatures. That being the case, there are a few variables to keep in mind before you go buy your raw pork.

What Meal are You Serving?

Portion size for pulled pork will vary depending on the meal you are serving. Lunch servings tend to be more moderate, while a supper portion might tip the scales a bit.

What’s the Occasion?

If your guests are walking around, maybe eating off paper plates, expect more reserved portions than you’ll need for a sit-down meal.

If you’re cooking for a festival where people are sampling from multiple vendors, again, a smaller helping is in order. But, if you’ve specifically invited friends and family over to sample your wares, they’ll expect a hearty pile of pulled pork!

What Else is on the Menu?

Are you serving side dishes or other grilled or smoked meats? Then serve a bit less pulled pork than you might otherwise so everyone has room to try a bit of everything.

Conclusion

When you’ve really got your pulled pork game down, you want everyone to get enough to satisfy their craving — including yourself. With a bit of prior planning and understanding of what happens to meat when it cooks, you can cross at least this one worry off your list and focus on cooking the perfect batch.

I hope this information helps you out at your next porkfest, or at least lets you tell someone, “Well, you know, if you want to be sure you have enough pork for everyone…”. If they challenge you, send them here!

Thanks for bearing with me through the math of how much pulled pork to serve per person. And remember, it’s absolutely ok to serve yourself first at your own cookout — provided no one is looking.

Cheers, everyone!