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| Amount |
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Meat is shown as raw purchase weight and cooked serving weight. Yields come from the USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry (2012).
Worked example
A complete answer at the calculator's defaults — 20 adults, 5 children, standard 6-inch soft tacos, 80/20 ground beef, with rice and beans on the side.
Result: 11 lb raw 80/20 ground beef · 6.5 lb cooked · 70 tacos for 20 adults + 5 children
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Raw 80/20 ground beef | 11 lb · 5 kg |
| → cooks down to | 6.5 lb · 67% yield |
| Soft tortillas | 77 · 8 packs of 10 |
| Shredded cheese | 33.8 oz · 2.1 lb |
| Shredded lettuce | 32.3 oz · 4 heads |
| Tomato or pico | 32.3 oz · 6 medium tomatoes |
| Sour cream | 26.9 oz · 2 tubs (16 oz) |
| Guacamole | 43 oz · 8 avocados |
| Salsa | 53.8 oz · 4 jars (16 oz) |
| Rice, dry | 33.8 oz · 2.1 lb |
| Beans, cooked | 11.3 cups · 8 cans (15 oz) |
| Limes | 13 · about 3.3 lb |
| White onion | 5 · cilantro 3 bunches |
Change any input above and every figure recalculates.
Raw weight and cooked weight are not the same number
Almost every published taco figure quietly conflates the two, and the popular 1 lb of beef = 8 tacos rule is where it does the most damage. That rule divides a 16 oz package by 2 oz of filling per taco — but the 16 oz is what you buy and the 2 oz is what you serve, and the pan sits between them.
The USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry measured drained ground-beef crumbles cooked to 165°F — exactly the taco-meat case — at a 67% yield for 80/20, and 62% for fattier 73/27. So a pound serves five to six tacos, not eight. A host planning twenty adults on a third of a pound each buys 6.7 lb, which cooks down to about 4.5 lb: barely two tacos a head at a party where people take three. The meat runs out two-thirds of the way down the line while the toppings sit untouched.
Raw lb to buy = cooked oz needed ÷ yield ÷ 16, ×1.10 buffer, rounded up to the nearest half pound
There is a sharper version of the same trap in the pork. A bone-in shoulder yields around 50% pulled carnitas against roughly 60% boneless — buy the bone-in cut at the boneless number and you are 20% short. That is why both appear separately in the protein list.
How much taco meat per person?
Plan on about 5 oz of cooked meat per adult and 2.5 oz per child — roughly two to three tacos at 1.75 oz of filling each. Because meat shrinks in the pan, that means buying around 7.5 oz of raw 80/20 ground beef per adult, since the USDA cooking-yield tables put drained 80/20 crumbles at 67%. If you are also serving rice and beans, cut the meat by about 15% — which is what the sides toggle above does.
How many tacos does 1 lb of ground beef make?
Five to six — not the eight that gets quoted. One pound of raw 80/20 yields only about 10.7 oz cooked at the USDA's 67% figure, so at 1.75 oz of filling per taco you get five or six. For a party, count on a pound of raw ground beef feeding two to two and a half people, not four. The eight-taco rule is a raw number wearing a cooked number's clothes.
How many tortillas or shells per person?
Three per adult and two per child, plus about 10% because guests circle back at a self-serve bar. Small four-inch street tortillas need four per adult — they are traditionally double-stacked. Hard shells need a further 15% on top: they arrive cracked, and nearly all the breakage happens along the shell's hinge. The calculator applies both adjustments automatically when you change the style.