Our family of five is heading out to the backcountry in a few weeks. We've been lightening our loads since our last trip to Jasper Park, where we carried a nested set of MSR stainless steel pots (three pots plus a ridiculously small frying pain). Light bulb!! I finally figured out I didn't have to take the stupid frying pan just because it came with the set. So now I'm down to two pots, but they're SS. Any recommendations? I am not too constrained by funds for cookwear right now. BTW, our stove is a MSR Dragonfly with windscreen.

I have 5 kids. Three are married now and I now have 5 grandkids.
Anytime our family went backpacking, I never had more than 3 kids at a time, so I cooked for 5 several times on the trail (2 adults, 3 kids).

I used a 1.3L titanium pot (4.8oz like http://www.ultralightdesigns.com/products/cooking/evernew13-pot.html ) and a .95L pot (4.2 oz http://cascadedesigns.com/MSR/Cookware/Fast-And-Light-Cookware/Titan-Kettle/product )

We do freeze dried cooking that just requires boiled water and we had to boil twice to get everyone fed. However, cooking and eating time rarely went over 30 minutes.

We used and still use the only stove that had no problems on the 2175 mile Appalachian trail—the alcohol stove.

Stove, pot stand, wind guard for one pot is 1.5oz. However, I had 2 going at once. The fuel container weighs 0.5oz

Thus total kitchen weight is 4.8 + 4.2 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 0.5 = 12.5oz

We used 3 oz. fuel (weight of HEET) / day. For 3 days we take about 7 oz fuel (that includes extra). This is for hot breakfast and supper.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: total kitchen setup + fuel for 3 days = 19.5oz. This is for 5 people for 3 days at the beginning. It’s about 13.5 oz at the end. That averages to 16.5oz/day for 5 people or 3.3oz/day for 1 person. It’s hard to beat that kitchen weight and at the same time be reliable.

-Barry

It really depends on what you are eating

Barry has mentioned a pretty good setup if you are just doing
dehydrated "Freezer Bag" style cooking with just boiling water - using two homemade alcohol stoves.

If you are doing more "complicated" cooking you might need more.

Me, I also tend to ususally do things like Barry - alcohol stoves and a couple of pots. I have also done well for four people using a large 2 litre anodized alumium pot from antigravity gear, along with a snow peak gigapower canister stove.

http://www.antigravitygear.com/proddetail.php?prod=MKBANS

is the set I have which would do fine for that. I normally use only the small pot when solo and add the big pot for a group.

Oh FWIW, if you're lightening your load, your dragonfly is a lot of stove, now spread over a whole family that kind of "amortizes" the load a little bit, but if you're going to do the dehydrated food stuffs anyway and only boil water you may do as well with a much lighter option - like alcohol stoves, or a small
canister stove.

Thank you. I'll look into that. I am new to Ultralight, so I thought my Dragonfly was "light"!

Thanks Barry. You broke that down for me really well. I need to look into the alcohol stove and titanium pot.

Hard Anodized Aluminum is a good buy for size/weight as well. When I am boiling water now for the family my go-to choice is the 2.3 Liter pot in this set: http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/basecamp-cookware/flex-3-pot-set/product

Thank you Sarbar. Another good option.