How to Order Spicy Catering for a Mixed Team in Toronto

Find out the heat range before you order

The most useful number in spicy catering is not the heat level, it is how many people want heat. Ask the group a single question: mild, medium or spicy. Three answers give you the split, and the split decides the order. A team where most people want mild needs one spicy tray; a team where most want spicy needs one mild tray, not the other way round.

Keep the survey short. A poll with five options produces five opinions and no decision. If you cannot survey the room, assume one in four guests wants real heat, one in two is happy with medium, and the rest want mild. That split suits most downtown office groups we serve, and the office catering checklist for downtown Toronto office managers shows how to collect it with the rest of the dietary list.

Use mild with spice on the side as the default

The safest way to order spicy catering is to cook the dish mild and send the heat separately. Chili is easy to add and impossible to remove, so a tray cooked mild can serve everyone, while a tray cooked hot serves only the people who like it. Ask for mild with spice on the side and each guest sets their own level at the table.

This is not a compromise for spice lovers. Add chili or a hot sauce on the side and the dish reaches full heat for the people who want it. We can do this on most dishes, and our catering planner has a spice level field with a “mild, spice on the side” option that we recommend for groups.

Do keep a few trays that are properly spicy for the spice lovers. A tray that is cooked spicy gives a depth of heat that a sauce on the side cannot match. Our guide to how hot Thai food can go lists the dishes marked Spicy, from red and green curry to Spicy Fish, so you can pick the right headline tray.

Pick the spicy trays that travel well

Not every spicy dish is equally good in a catering tray. Curries and saucy dishes hold their heat and flavour; crispy dishes and dry-fried dishes soften. Our picks for spicy catering are:

• Red curry or green curry: reliable in a tray, available in chicken, beef, vegetarian and shrimp, and the easiest heat to explain to a team.
• Mapo Tofu: from VegeDelight next door, hot and savoury, built for rice, vegetarian with no meat.
• Tea Tree Mushroom Fragrant Spicy Pot: a centrepiece dish with real heat. It contains nuts.
• Sauteed Dried Tofu in Chili Bean Sauce: firm, deeply savoury and a good second spicy dish.

Pair them with a mild curry and a noodle dish so the table is balanced. Our Thai curry catering guide explains how the curries differ, and our guide to spicy Sichuan vegetarian dishes covers the VegeDelight dishes in detail. VegeDelight dishes can join an Evergreen Thai order and arrive in one delivery.

Size the order by tray, not by guess

A small tray serves 5 to 6 people and a large tray serves 10 to 12. Use those two numbers and the spice split to size the order.

Here is a sample order for 20 guests, with a quarter wanting real heat:

1. One large red curry (spicy) for the spice lovers and anyone adventurous.
2. One large golden curry (mild) for cautious guests.
3. One large Pad Thai as the crowd-pleasing noodle dish.
4. One small Mapo Tofu as the second spicy option, vegetarian.
5. Fried rice and jasmine rice to carry the heat.

Prices are before tax, and curry trays start at $90 for a small tray and $170 for a large tray. Our guest count and budget guide walks through how to size larger orders. For a team of 50 or more, add trays in proportion and keep the split: roughly one spicy tray for every two milder ones.

Label the heat and mention allergies

Once the food arrives, the organizer’s job is to make the heat visible. Ask us to label the trays, or add a small card yourself with the words Mild, Medium or Spicy. A busy department should be able to serve itself without a briefing, which matters most at lunch when the organizer is often back at a desk.

Do tell us about allergies when you order. Peanuts and nuts can be packed on the side, an egg or seafood allergy can be handled by leaving the ingredient out, and fish sauce can be replaced with another seasoning. The kitchen is shared, and we cannot promise allergen-free preparation, so we confirm each dish by phone for severe allergies. Our ingredient transparency guide lists the questions worth asking any caterer.

Evergreen Thai is 100% halal, with halal meat from FoodsUp, halal seafood and no pork on the menu, so a halal team can order the spicy dishes without a second check. VegeDelight is fully vegetarian, with no meat or pork.

Place the order and get your team fed

Order at least 24 hours ahead. Online payment is available when there is enough notice, and for urgent needs you can call. Delivery is free within 5 km of the restaurant, and groups of 10 or more get direct delivery coordinated by our team. If your event is a corporate catering order or a party tray order, the service pages list tray sizes and prices.

For the quickest route, use the planner. Choose the spice level, enter your headcount and budget, and it builds a menu that you can change tray by tray before you send it.

Scale spicy catering for an all-hands or large event

The same rules work at 100 guests as at 20, but the arithmetic matters more because mistakes multiply. Start from tray sizes: a large tray serves 10 to 12 people, so 100 guests need roughly nine or ten large trays of mains, plus starters, rice and dessert.

Then apply the heat split. A large group is closer to the average than a small team, so the one-in-four rule holds well. For 100 guests, that means:

1. Two or three large spicy trays. Red curry, green curry and mapo tofu cover meat and vegetarian guests.
2. Two large mild curries. Golden curry is the safe anchor.
3. Three or four large noodle and rice trays. Pad Thai, Thai fried rice and basil noodle carry most of the room.
4. One or two large vegetarian trays. Mixed vegetable curry or a VegeDelight dish such as fragrant eggplant.
5. Spice on the side. Ask for chili sent separately so medium eaters can top up.

Large curry trays are $170 each before tax, so a sensible 100-guest spicy order lands in a predictable range once you fix the number of trays. Our guide to catering for 1,000 employees covers how to split a very large order into service waves and delivery drops.

Two more habits help at scale. Put the spicy trays at the end of the buffet line, so guests fill their plates with the mild base first and add heat at the end. And label every tray, because at 100 guests nobody can ask the organizer what each dish is. For large events, give us as much notice as you can, and call +1 416-581-8668 to confirm delivery timing for your building.

Ready to order?

Tell us your headcount and heat range, and we will build a menu that works for the whole team. Get a catering quote or call +1 416-581-8668.