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It depends a lot upon what sort of cooking facilities are a available. My go-to for a large crowd is lasagna, but even with my double wall oven, I couldn't produce lasagna for 100, and doubly so when the food is a buffet and people can take an extra large serving. You would need lasagna servings for 150 if you were going to put it out on a buffet. Not to mention the oven space needed for the garlic bread.
For 100 people, the only way I could produce all that much hot food all at once would be to use the barbecue grills, including firing up the smoker to high temps and grilling on that, and I'd serve grilled brats with buns and assorted cold salads.
Sheet cakes could work for dessert and those can be baked the day before. Maybe two flavors. Or even three for a crowd that large.
If OP has access to a commercial kitchen that makes a difference in what could be prepared. Perhaps at her church? What is this group pf 100 people, anyway?
I did a very large meal but that was more like for 30 people. I grilled pork adobo and put out all the fixings for make your own burritos and I had some salads to go with it.
I've done "burger feeds" for motorcycle shows. WAYYYY more than a measly hundred people. (Besides, some of them will be HUNGRY.)
Go thru >3000 burgers during that lunch time.
No sweat, as long as we don't run outta food!
When I was working, I would provide a lunch in the plant for 600+ employees during our annual inventory and for an occasional recognition event.
We tried ordering BBQ and that was a disaster as the vendors would never bring enough food. We tried the Panera option and it was NOT well received and it was twice as expensive.
What we ended up doing was to hire one of two caterers. The first guy would create an authentic Chicago hot dog stand. That went over very well. The second caterer would do a burger feed. That worked really well as all the other food (beans, salad, garnishes) could be prepared off-site and placed on the table and the grills could put out all the hamburgers. The vendor would have 2x the food we needed and take back anything that we did not use.
I'd call the local BBQ joint that does catering and order up enough pulled pork for 125 people (in case some were extra hungry) Of course they have sides like beans, potato salad and coleslaw.
I would never attempt to cook for that many people; I don't know how.
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