Home / Ramadan Zone / Iftar Food Quantity Calculator
Every iftar host knows the two fears: the rice running out while guests are still hungry, and a week of leftovers because you cooked for forty when fifteen came. This calculator replaces the guesswork with calm, per-person baselines drawn from how people actually eat after a fast — enter your guests, add the children, and read off exactly how many dates, samosas, grams of rice and litres of drink your table needs.
Children are counted at half portions, which matches how under-twelves really eat at a mixed table. The baselines assume a typical spread — starters, one main with rice, drinks and tea — so if you are serving two mains, or skipping the fried starters, adjust the relevant lines down or up with the tips below.
Fasting guests eat less than hosts imagine, but they eat in stages. Three dates and a drink break the fast; two samosas and a small handful of pakoras follow; then a moderate plate of the main — about 120 g of uncooked rice per adult is generous once starters have done their work — and tea to close. The calculator's defaults follow exactly that arc, which is why its totals often look smaller than a worried host expects. Trust them, then add a deliberate margin of one or two extra portions rather than doubling everything.
Drinks are the exception: after a day without water, people drink more than they eat. The defaults give 500 ml of water and 250 ml of juice or sharbat per person, and in hot climates or after very long fasts you should lean higher still — running out of cold water at Maghrib is the one shortage guests remember.
The table is a starting point, not a command. If biryani is the only main, raise the rice slightly; if you are also serving karahi and kebabs, the same rice goes further because guests split their appetite across dishes. A starters-only iftar — common for mosque and community events — needs roughly double the samosas and pakoras and none of the rice at all.
Know your crowd. Teenage boys and guests who have done physical work all day sit well above the baseline; elderly guests and young children below it, which is why the calculator already halves the children's count. When in doubt between two numbers, cook the smaller one and keep bread, salad and fruit generous — those forgive every miscalculation.
Even a well-calculated iftar leaves something, so decide its fate before you cook. Rice dishes and curries become tomorrow's suhoor or lunch with no loss of dignity; fried starters do not survive reheating gracefully, so fry those in small batches as guests arrive instead of all at once. Keep clean containers by the serving dishes, not in a cupboard across the kitchen, and packing up becomes part of the evening rather than a midnight chore.
Food that is genuinely surplus and still fresh belongs with people, not bins: neighbours, the building guard, a community fridge, or the sharing routes described in our leftover food-sharing guide. In Ramadan especially, the extra portion you planned as a margin can be someone else's iftar — the calculator's margin advice exists partly so there is always a little to give.
Work backwards from Maghrib. The rice or main goes on first, timed to rest as the adhan sounds; drinks are mixed and chilled an hour ahead; fruit chaat is chopped in the afternoon and dressed at the last minute; fried starters are shaped in advance and fried in the final twenty minutes so they reach the table hot. Dates, glasses and water should be on the table before anything else — they are the fast-breaking essentials everything else can wait behind.
Print the calculator's table and stick it inside a cupboard door. The second time you host, annotate it with what actually happened — “12 guests, samosas perfect, rice 200 g left” — and by your third iftar you own a set of numbers fitted precisely to your family and friends.
Three per person is the standard planning figure — most people break their fast with one to three dates. For 20 guests that is 60 dates, roughly two standard 500 g boxes depending on the variety.
About 120 g of uncooked basmati per adult (60 g per child) when rice is the main and starters are served first. Uncooked rice roughly triples in weight when cooked, so this is a generous plate.
Because at a mixed iftar table, children under about twelve reliably eat close to half an adult portion across starters and mains. If your young guests are mostly teenagers, count them as adults instead.
Plan 500 ml of water plus 250 ml of juice or sharbat per person, and a cup of tea each to finish. In hot weather or for fasts over 15 hours, add another 250 ml of water per person.
The same per-person baselines hold at scale — enter the full expected attendance. At large numbers, round each line up to whole packs or trays, and favour the margin on drinks and dates, which are cheap, keep well and are the items guests reach for first.