¿What is the right size of paella pan for the amount of rations I want?

¿For how many people is this paella pan?,¿Can I fit 2 kilograms of rice in this paella?,¿What size of paella pan do I need to buy for 6 people?,¿Do I need to buy a new paella pan or the one I have more than suffices for what I want to do?

You probably have made one of these questions when you were planning dinner or event with your friends, companions, or family, leaving you indecisive and worried that if you would be able to make that paella you want to surprise them all with.

Don’t worry, we here at Originalpaella bring you a solution for this kind of doubts and similar in this concise table, you will only need to give it a cursory look too know if you have your perfect paella or need to buy a new one, we even offer you the exact number of rations that you can obtain with your paella pan.

Table of rations for paella pan size

Click on this link to download the table

Table of number of people per type of paella ration desired

In this other table you have the same information, but ordered differently. Instead of indicating the diameter in cm of the paella that you need for the number of people you want to feed, we indicate in this table, based on the people you want to feed, the necessary diameter of paella, depending on whether that paella will be made in a thin layer. , half or full capacity.

Click on this link to download the table

¿Pretty easy on the eyes, isn’t it?, don’t worry, even if the table itself explains much of herself alone, we can still give it a more profound analysis.

You can find the size of the paella pan in the left part of the table, all the dimensions are based in the superior diameter of the paella, as it allows us to know the surface we can cover with rice and our ingredients.

Types of paella rations

Following this, we offer you a division of the number of rations that you can obtain with your paella pan, keep in mind that these rations for person are based in 100 grams of dry rice for person, if you include more for each person, the measurement we provide you will not be accurate.

The division of rations follows the following hierarchical order:

Thin or Valencian layer

Marked with the yellow color in the table, it is the most common and classic way of preparing a paella. This way of cooking paella allows us to obtain a homogeneous cooking of the rice layer and the coagulation of a veil of fat and protein, which gives the paella a greater amount of flavor. Furthermore, since it is a minimal layer of rice, the proportion of socarrat is superior to other styles of making paella.

It is the variation of paella preparation that gives us fewer servings, but ensures maximum flavor and socarrat compared to other ways of preparing it.

Half capacity layer

Marked with the blue color in the table, it implies that we have filled the paella pan to half its capacity with rice. Even if it perfectly preserves its flavors, we will obtain a lower proportion of socarrat-rice than the Valencian layer, in the same way, the protein veil will affect a lower amount of rice, although we will preserve the flavor better than a full capacity layer.

It is the perfect option to prepare rice portions for an intermediate number of diners without sacrificing the flavor of the rice to a large extent.

Full capacity layer

Marked with the red color in the table, it implies that we have filled our paella pan to its maximum possible, with the rice almost reaching the upper edges.

Although it is the style that provides the greatest number of servings possible, most of the flavor of the paella will be concentrated in its lower part, because the upper part of the layer will absorb as much broth as it can and the rest will remain suffocated below. In the same way, the upper part will not enjoy a homogeneous cooking like the lower layer does. This does not necessarily imply that paella has lost its flavor, we will have sacrificed a more powerful overall flavor for a much larger number of servings than its other alternatives.

General recommendations

And if you have doubts about which paella burner or gas burner you would need for your paella pan, don't worry, we have another similar table on our blog, where we tell you which paella burner is necessary for the size of your paella pans and what range of paella dimensions each paella burner can cover.

We would also like to recommend you about which type of rices we could potentially use for our paella; we commonly recommend the use of round rice because these do not tend to open themselves during cooking. If you are looking to use a low paella or valencian, we recommend you the use of soft and round grain, such as senia or bahía rice, as it possesses a greater capacity of absorption of flavors as well as being more sensible to overcooking. If we where to use a high paella pan, we would recommend hard and round grain, such as bomba or Maratelli rice, which have a higher resistance to overcooking, but don’t absorb flavors as well as other alternatives.

We would recommend for the general use, just as we explain more in deep in our blog about types of rice, albufera rice, a hybrid within hard and soft round grain of rice which combines all its advantages without any of its disadvantages.

If you also have doubts about which kind of paella pan is more accurate for you, you can find information over which different kind of paella pans exists and their advantages and disadvantages in our blog.

If you want to see more content from our blog, follow this link.