At any party, it’s no secret that the charcuterie board is always a hit! From meats to cheese to little snacks, and everything in between, there is something for everyone. Learn how to make the best Cheese and Charcuterie Board for your next party. It’s a grazing appetizer that you can make time and time again.
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About this Basic Cheese and Charcuterie Board
I’m convinced that we all love charcuterie boards now because we grew up on Lunchables. And you know, I’m not so sure there’s anything wrong with that! I mean, meat, cheese, crackers, and tasty spreads — yes, please!
Believe it or not, you can make pretty affordable charcuterie boards too. There’s a lot of different options for cheese, meat, crackers and additional items (called accoutrements), so you can look for anything within your budget.
They are also fun to make themed. My Christmas charcuterie board is always a hit around the holidays. But making them year-round is a must!
So if you’re looking for all the pro-tips on how to make the best “grown-up Lunchable” — ahem, I mean, charcuterie board — then you’ve come to the right place! There’s so many fun ways to make these meat and cheese boards.
More snack recipes: Homemade Poutine • Pizza Pinwheels • Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks
Why you’ll love this recipe
What’s not to love about a charcuterie board?!
- Most often, there is no baking or heating required! Just place all of the cheese, meat and crackers on the board and serve. (Unless you want to use homemade treats, that is.)
- There are endless ways to customize a cheese and charcuterie board. You can do any combination you can dream up!
- This makes for the best party appetizer, but is even a great light dinner. Serve with your favorite wine for an easy pairing.
Tools & equipment
The main important item you’ll need for a charcuterie board is a really large wooden board. You can use a cheese board, a cutting board or a board specifically designed for charcuterie. Toothpicks can be helpful for cheese cubes, and if you’ve got some soft cheese then you’ll need cheese knives or spreaders.
To easily serve spreads and jams, some spoons would be helpful! Keep some mini forks on hand too, and you’ll need little bowls for any spreads and jams that you use.
Ingredients
From the meats you choose, to the tangy cheese and the fun accompaniments and add-ons — there are so many different ingredients to choose from. Here’s the basics guidelines for each of things you’ll need to make the best charcuterie board ever:
- a few types of cheese
- some cured meats
- accompaniments (e.g. olives)
- bread and/or crackers
Types of cheese for cheese boards
There are a couple ways to choose different cheese for a cheese board. (By the way, if there’s no meat, it’s not called a charcuterie board! Charcuterie = meat.) Four is a great number to start with. You can always do 3 or 5, too!
Whether you love soft cheese or hard cheese, there’s a tasty option to put onto the board. You can use slices of cheese, chunks of cheese or spreadable cheese!
Method #1:
One rhyming rule you can remember is “something old, something new, something goat and something blue.”
“Old” cheese: Aged cheddar, parmagiano-reggiano, gruyere, gouda are all great. These are hard, strong cheeses! You could also use brie.
New cheese: This includes fresh cheeses like mozzarella, ricotta, marscarpone, and feta are delicious. I usually choose something semi-soft to complement the hard, old cheeses.
Goat cheese: The tangy flavor of goat cheese chèvre is so tasty! They usually come in logs, but can be spreadable or something harder sometimes. Sometimes, I do a flavored goat cheese like blueberry or herb. You can also sometimes find hard cheeses made with goat milk.
Blue cheese: Obviously blue cheese is this category! The four classics are French roquefort, English stilton, Italian gorgonzola, and Spanish cabrales.
Method #2:
While the “something old, new, goat and blue” is a fun and tried-and-true method, you can also use this texture-based formula for your cheese picks too. (This is my preferred method.)
One soft cheese: Something spreadable or soft like goat, brie cheese, camembert, cottage cheese, feta, burrata, ricotta or spreads.
A semi-hard cheese: Something with a little more hardness, like cheddar, gouda, havarti, fontina, colby, gruyere, jarlsberg, monterey jack or manchego.
One hard cheese: A cheese with more of a tough texture, such as parmesan, manchego, pecorino, beaufort or manchego.
One type of blue cheese: Something blue or something pungent here! Marbled blue, danish blue, gorgonzola, roquefort or stilton.
Charcuterie meats
While “charcuterie” technically refers to French meats and “salumi” is the term for Italian cured meats, the term “charcuterie” can also refer to an assortment of meat products served together.
There’s essentially endless options as to what meat you can use on a charcuterie board, and you could even include homemade dips that feature meat. Here are some options to choose from:
- thinly-sliced ham: such as prosciutto (most popular!), serrano or mortadella
- salami: such as Sopressata, Genoa salami, chorizo, coppa/capicola,
- sausages: fresh and smoked sausages, summer sausage, andouilles, black/blood sausage, boudins blancs (white sausage)
- meat spreads: like paté, Nduja or rillettes
Accompaniments for charcuterie boards
The fun part, to me, is all the extra stuff to serve with charcuterie and cheese! Think of the most delicious bites you can create — crackers, cheese, spreads, fruits, chocolate and more!
Fruits: Fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries are all delicious! Citrus like oranges and mandarins are a great option as well. Or grab some grapes, pears, apples, or apricots. Dried fruit like cranberries and figs are always tasty too!
Spreads: Garlic and herb butter is great when you have things like crostini or other breads on the board. Bruschetta isn’t necessarily a spread, but it’s great on charcuterie. Fresh hummus and whipped feta are great spreads/dips as well. Honey (with or without honeycomb) is also a beautiful and tasty addition, and Nutella or other nut butters are fun too.
Jams and jellies: Whether you choose a classic, like strawberry jelly or grape jelly, or something more unique like fig jam or preserves, these add fruity sweetness into the mix. You can do a spicy jam like red pepper jelly too. Apricot jam and orange marmalade are delicious choices as well.
Nuts: Salted pecans, walnuts, and almonds are popular options. Or you can choose a more “fancy” option, like macadamia nuts or pistachios. My recipe for spiced nuts would also be great here!
Starches: Choose from any of your favorite crackers! I like to have a variety of buttery crackers, salty options and some seeded crackers too. Or make some homemade pita chips! As for bread, slice up some sourdough or a baguette for something sturdy. Crostini, AKA toasted slices of bread, are great as well.
Others: Little chocolates are a nice, sweet touch — chocolate covered pretzels are great too! Add some fresh vegetables like carrots, cucumbers and celery to your charcuteries boards. Blue cheese stuffed olives or plain olives (green or black) are also pretty standard. (My favorite is Castelvetrano olives.)
Themes for charcuteries boards
Going with a theme is a fun way to
- Wine tasting cheese board: Grab your favorite bottle of wine (or do a whole wine tasting party) and choose some cheeses that will go best with it!
- Italian cheeses & meats: I love to use some olive oil marinated mozzarella on an Italian charcuterie. Prosciutto is a great meat to use on this board!
- French cheeses & meats: Center a French board around some baked brie and a sliced baguette. Grab whatever meats you’d like!
- Holiday cheese board: Fresh herbs, like rosemary, are a nice touch for holiday cheese boards. Add some fruit like citrus or cranberries too!
- Dessert cheese board: Instead of crackers, grab cookies and chocolate! And then grab some fun cheeses like marscapone and goat cheese. Sweet fruits like berries and apples are also lovely.
Choosing your charcuterie elements
Once you know what you can include, it’s time to decide which ones you want and how to arrange them!
It’s pretty popular to stick to the 3-3-3-3 rule, which goes that you must include three cheeses, three meats, three starches and three accompaniments.
To me this is a rough guideline! In this board pictured here, I had only two kinds of crackers and two kinds of meat, but lots of accompaniments and four cheeses. Whatever you like is good — the idea is to have variety of everything!
Essential tip: Before you unwrap any items from their packaging, stage them on the board so you have an idea of how big of a board you need. This includes cheese wedges, bowls and large fruits like bunches of grapes.
You can also use empty bowls or plates in a similar size to substitute for some items, just to get an idea of how you’ll arrange it! Then take a picture with your phone so you don’t forget!
Building your board
Ready to throw it together? Depending on your board size and how many cheeses and/or larger items you will have, use the guide above to help you arrange them on your board.
Place all the biggest things on the board first, such as the cheeses and bowls for spreads like jam and honey, you can fill them with the spreads later. Arrange the cheeses in an arc, in a zig-zag row, in the four corners or, if you have 5, in an X shape.
Next, fill bowls with spreads. Add the next biggest items around the cheeses, such as rolls of cured meats and bunches of grapes.
Finally, fill in the gaps with the smallest pieces, including crackers, chocolate and nuts.
Serve with spreaders, toothpicks and cheese knives.
Drink pairings
Serve your charcuterie with a classic cocktail like a classic martini or manhattan. Most sweet and fruity cocktails go well with cheeses, too.
Wine is also a classic, so you could whip up some red sangria. A red wine spritzer and white wine spritzer would also be great with your favorite cheese and meat combos! For a simple pairing, choose your favorite red wine or white wine.
Tips & tricks
With these tips and tricks, you can be sure you’ll serve your guests the best charcuterie board ever:
- If you don’t like blue cheese, or your people do not, get a mild one of get another flavored cheese. Something like an herb goat cheese or jalapeño cheese or wine-soaked cheese — this adds variety without having to use a blue cheese.
- Before you buy your cheese and meat, you need to have a good idea of the size board you’ll be using. Don’t buy a giant wheel of cheese that will take up the whole board!
- Clean all fruit really well, but make sure it’s completely dry before placing on the board. Otherwise, it could make crackers and cheese pretty soggy.
FAQ
Don’t use fruits that brown quickly, like bananas, or have a lot of excess moisture like watermelon. Cooked veggies are also not a great idea on charcuterie boards. Try not to add a bunch of super pungent cheese too, as it could make the charcuterie board less appealing.
Always place the biggest things on the board first! Place the cheeses and bowls onto the board so that you can frame everything else around these larger items.
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Cheese and Charcuterie Board
ingredients
- 4 to 8 ounces variety of cured meats such as prosciutto or salami
- 8 ounces cheddar cheese or other hard cheese
- 8 ounces gouda cheese or other semi-soft cheese
- 8 ounces manchego cheese or other soft cheese
- 4 to 8 ounces goat cheese or other spreadable cheese
- 1 pound grapes red and/or green, or other fruit
- ½ to 1 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate-covered pretzels
- 1 cup mixed nuts
- ½ cup jam any flavor
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup olives green or black, ideally pitted
- 6 ounces crackers assorted
instructions
- Before you unwrap any items from their packaging, stage them on the board so you have an idea of how big of a board you need. This includes cheese wedges, bowls and large fruits like bunches of grapes.
- Place all the biggest things on the board first, such as the cheeses and bowls for spreads like jam and honey (you can fill them with the spreads later). Arrange the cheeses in an arc, in a zig-zag row, in the four corners or, if you have 5, in an X shape.
- Next, fill bowls with spreads. Add the next biggest items around the cheeses, such as rolls of cured meats and bunches of grapes.
- Finally, fill in the gaps with the smallest pieces, including crackers, chocolate and nuts.
- Serve with spreaders, toothpicks and cheese knives.
notes
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