Christmas dinner vegetables – how much to serve (2024)

FAQs

Christmas dinner vegetables – how much to serve? ›

Christmas Dinner Sides

How much veg is too much? Whether it's parsnips, sprouts, braised cabbage or carrots, 80g of each per person will do the trick. Clear your cupboards and fridge before writing your shopping list, it'll stop you from overbuying at the shop.

Discover the perfect amounts of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sprouts, peas and red cabbage to serve with your roast turkey. Need help planning your Christmas dinner?

Too many vegetables should not be served at dinner; the general rule of serving two is a good one to follow. Lettuce is usually served with any salad and would make the third. In choosing the two, it is better to select one starch and one green vegetable; the two being pleasing in taste when eaten together.

The quantity. You will find that as your veg loses its moisture it will shrink so you always need more veg than you think. I work on the basis of 150g per person if it's a side to a roast. If you want the veg to be the centre of a roast veg uber-salad, then go for 250g per person.

Estimate about 1 to 1 ½ cups of vegetables per person, or about 4 to 6 ounces.

Prep your veg the night before

Peel potatoes, carrots, parsnips and any other veg you're having and leave them in pans of cold water overnight. This will save you a lot of faff and additional mess on Christmas morning.

A 2-quart bowl will serve 12-16 people. For raw vegetables plan 3-4 pieces for each person. For example 3-4 carrot sticks.

A standard serve is about 75g (100–350kJ) or: ½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables (for example, broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin) ½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils (preferably with no added salt) 1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables.

How much of your dinner plate should be vegetables? ›

Make most of your meal vegetables and fruits – ½ of your plate. Aim for color and variety, and remember that potatoes don't count as vegetables on the Healthy Eating Plate because of their negative impact on blood sugar. Go for whole grains – ¼ of your plate.

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables daily.

Here are our top Christmas dinner side dishes, from brussels sprouts to red cabbage and roast parsnips. Plus, winter greens and some indulgent gratin recipes. We also have plenty of Christmas trimmings ideas, from pigs in blankets to the perfect gravy.

Veggies galore

Sprouts, carrots and parsnips, the traditional Christmas vegetables are best bought fresh as they are in season and often grown locally. A single serving of vegetables should be around 80g, so just buy what you'll need on the day.

If you love the idea of serving roasted vegetables with your meals throughout the week but don't have the time to roast them every weeknight, I would highly suggest roasting large quantities at a time (over the weekend) and reheating them throughout the week.

That means that 5 servings a day would be 5 x 80 = 400 grams or 0.88 pounds. Let's just be generous here and call 5 servings 1 lbs per day. So our average (fictious) human needs 1 lbs of vegetables per day.

Fruit and veggie trays - For fresh fruit, about half cup per person should do the job. With veggies, estimate about six to ten pieces per person.

Using the cheapest possible prices for a set basket of 11 Christmas dinner items, our research shows it will cost £33.08 to feed eight people, £3.27 more than it did in 2022, when the same basket cost £29.36 — a price increase of 13%. The price per head is £4.14.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPlate program recommends making half your plate fruits and vegetables, prioritizing whole fruits and varying your vegetables. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables daily.