Holiday Meals calculators
Holiday meals are the one event where leftovers aren’t waste — they’re the point. That changes the math: turkey guidance runs a full pound of whole bird per guest partly so there are sandwiches the next day, and ham depends heavily on whether the bone is in. These calculators use USDA and industry purchasing guidance, flag where bone changes the yield, and treat the leftover buffer as a feature you tune rather than an error factor.
Pick your calculator
Turkey Size Calculator
Work out what size Thanksgiving turkey to buy: 1–1.5 lb of whole bird per guest, leftover planning, the two-birds rule past 20 lb, thawing times and cost.
Open calculator →Holiday Ham Calculator
Calculate what size holiday ham to buy: ¾ lb bone-in or ½ lb boneless per person, leftover buffer, glaze notes, heating guidance and an estimated cost range.
Open calculator →Side Dishes Calculator
Plan side dishes for a holiday or BBQ: total ounces of sides per person across the spread, per-dish portions, shopping weight and cost — with a leftover buffer.
Open calculator →
Which calculator should I use?
Size the centerpiece first with the turkey or ham calculator — for turkey, the calculator also tells you when one giant bird is worse than two mediums. Then run the side dishes calculator once for the whole table instead of guessing dish by dish; holiday sides are where over-buying compounds fastest because every dish gets sized as if it were the only one. Quantities on these pages are planning guidance, not rules — check the last-updated date and your own crowd’s habits.