Menus & occasions · 3 min read ·
Planning a Dawat: How to Cook for 15–20 Guests
How to plan and cook a Pakistani dawat for 15–20 people: a balanced menu, how much food to make per person, a cooking schedule over three days, and tips for serving hot.
A dawat, a dinner party for family and friends, is one of the great pleasures of Pakistani life, and one of the more stressful things to cook. Twenty guests means big pots, a full fridge and a lot of timing. The secret is not cooking more dishes but planning fewer, choosing ones that can be made ahead, and spreading the work over several days.
Build a balanced menu
A typical Pakistani dawat has a predictable structure, and it works well:
- One rice dish: biryani or a pulao.
- One or two meat dishes with gravy: mutton qorma, chicken karahi or white karahi, eaten with naan.
- One fried or grilled item: shami kebabs, seekh kebabs or chicken tikka.
- Sides: raita, kachumber salad, naan from the tandoor.
- Two desserts: one cold and made ahead, like fruit trifle or kheer; one traditional, like zarda or gajar halwa.
- A cold drink and chai or qehwa at the end.
Resist the urge to add more mains. Two strong dishes cooked well are better than five rushed ones.
How much to make
These are generous quantities for 20 adults at a Pakistani dawat, where people expect plenty and second helpings:
| Dish | For 20 guests |
|---|---|
| Biryani | 2–2.5 kg uncooked rice, 3–3.5 kg chicken |
| Qorma or karahi | 3–3.5 kg meat on the bone |
| Shami or seekh kebabs | 40–50 pieces |
| Raita | 2 kg yogurt |
| Naan | 30–35 |
| Dessert | 2 large bowls (about 20–25 servings each type) |
If you’re serving two meat dishes, reduce each slightly. Children eat roughly half an adult portion.
To work this out for your own menu, our dawat planner scales any of our recipes to your guest count and adds everything up into one shopping list, with a cost estimate in your local prices.
Scaling recipes up
Most recipes double or triple well, with a few adjustments:
- Spices don’t scale perfectly. For a triple batch, use about 2½ times the chili and whole spices, then taste and adjust.
- Cooking times increase. A large pot of qorma takes longer to come to the boil and longer for the .
- Use wide, heavy pots or split large quantities into two pots. A very deep pot of biryani cooks unevenly.
- Biryani for a crowd is easier in two medium pots than one huge one.
A three-day schedule
Two days before
- Shop for everything, including disposable foil trays if you’ll need them.
- Make and freeze shami kebabs (or take them from the freezer).
- Make ginger-garlic paste and fry onions for birista.
The day before
- Cook the qorma completely; it tastes better the next day.
- Make the dessert that needs to set (trifle, kheer, firni).
- Marinate the chicken for biryani or tikka.
- Make the biryani masala.
- Chop salad vegetables (store separately, undressed).
On the day
- Morning: make raita base, green chutney, drinks base.
- 2–3 hours before guests: boil rice, layer and put biryani on dum. Fry kebabs.
- 1 hour before: warm the qorma slowly. Order or collect naan.
- 30 minutes before: dress the salad, finish the raita.
Keeping food hot
The hardest part of a dawat is serving everything hot at once. Biryani stays hot for a long time if left sealed on the lowest heat on a tawa. Qorma can sit on a very low flame. Kebabs can be kept warm in a low oven, uncovered so they stay crisp. Naan is best ordered for collection just before serving and kept wrapped in a cloth.
The finishing touches
A few small details make a dawat feel generous: a plate of lemon wedges and sliced onions, a bowl of extra green chutney, ice in the drinks, and fresh chai or qehwa after the meal. And give yourself a job-free hour before guests arrive. A calm host makes a better dawat than one more dish.
