How to sell mac and cheese as a food vendor

[jay white]

Hello, just wondering if anyone else sells mac and cheese or has any tips.

Ive just finished my menu and currently planning my first event in 6 weeks but the one thing im struggling with is the set up

How to store the pasta and the cheese as will be doing a 6 hour event how do i keep everything cooked but not over cooked will be cooking pasta on site as well but its the storing it and keeping the cheese hot for so long

 

[fisicx]

What sort of event?

How are you cooking the pasta? I’m assuming you will batch cook throughout the day so you have a constant supply of fresh food.

You keep it hot in a warmer. There are loads of types you can buy.

 

[Gyumri]

Hello, just wondering if anyone else sells mac and cheese or has any tips.

You can't expect tips until you've sold the pasta. I would put a "Vegan" sticker on anything you sell because that seems to be all the rage- in some cases literally.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

How far have you got in terms of your set up? I.e. how are you planning to cook it on the day and how often? That will determine how much you need to hold at any one time (along with the event size and how many portions you expect to sell)?

From there you should be able to work back to find out how much you need to be holding and then you could look at your options. If it's a big event and you're expecting to sell hundreds of portions then you might need big bain maries or heated cabinets.... if it's 20 portions at the local village fair a couple of slow cookers will probably do you.

 

[RandyMarsh]

If it's just one big pot of food you need to keep warm then I would use a soup kettle. They cost about £70 from somewhere like Nisbets. If there are several different items to warm then use a bain marie with several pans.

 

[IanSuth]

last time i had mac'n'cheese at an outside even it was basically pre-cooked in large metal trays, cut into rectangles and stored over a bain mairie to be served as needed. I think they had 3 trays, with others in a cool box. As the finished a tray the got one out the cooler and moved to the one which had been out over the water longest.

Guess they knew how long it took to heat and that that fitted their throughput. They were also cooking jerk chicken on a grill

 

[RandyMarsh]

last time i had mac'n'cheese at an outside even it was basically pre-cooked in large metal trays, cut into rectangles and stored over a bain mairie to be served as needed. I think they had 3 trays, with others in a cool box. As the finished a tray the got one out the cooler and moved to the one which had been out over the water longest.

Guess they knew how long it took to heat and that that fitted their throughput. They were also cooking jerk chicken on a grill

You don't use a bain marie to heat up cold food (exceot for a delicate sauce or for melting chocolate), it's for keeping hot food hot. It heats too slowly to warm up cold food quickly enough so the food would spend too long in the temperature danger zone. I wouldn't eat at that stall!

 

[fisicx]

@jay white joined, posted and left a few minutes later and hasn't been back since. It's almost as if they were waiting for their mate to join and post with a link to their website selling mac and cheese.