How To Make The Perfect Cheese Board
Perfect for parties, the holidays, and family gatherings - making a cheese board is an entertaining essential!
Servings: 6
Ingredients
- Cheeses You'll want an assortment of at least 3 different cheeses of various textures and flavors.
- Charcuterie Select several dried meats that compliment your cheese flavors, such as Salami, Proscuitto, Soppressata, Capocollo, Mortadella, Chorizo.
- Fruit Dried and/or fresh, use whatever's in season!
- Crackers and/or Bread Include a variety of crackers with different textures that compliment your cheese and charcuterie flavor profiles; and/or sliced baguette or other crusty bread.
- Nuts Choose a few types of nuts that offer both complimenting and contrasting flavors, like candied walnuts and spicy almonds.
- Pickled Things Veggies that are pickled - like beets, asparagus, and cornichons - add great sour notes for balancing the sweetness and saltiness of your other cheese board items.
- Jams and/or Preserves Offer your guests something seasonal and sweet to enjoy with their salt and savory snacks!
- Olives Include both green and black olives, or whatever variety goes best with your cheese and charcuterie selections.
Instructions
- Before starting, visualize how you'd like your cheese board to look to get an idea of your layout. I like to even sketch my designs beforehand!
- Paying attention to varying textures and colors, assemble your cheese board with your cheeses, charcuterie, fruit, crackers and/or bread.
- Because they are juicy, I recommend including your pickled items and olives in separate dishes on your cheese board.
- Likewise, for keeping organized, feature your nuts selection in little dishes.
- Include jams and/or preserves in little dishes on your cheese board.
Notes
- I recommend using a lovely board or platter made of wood or slate, or other eye-catching and food-safe material, for presenting your perfect cheese board to your guests.
- Be sure to read serving suggestions on nutrition labels of your ingredients to determine serving amounts. You want to be sure there's plenty to go around!
- See my post for tips on choosing the right cheeses for your cheese board: you can't go wrong with a fun selection of different textures and flavors. Try including one firm cheese, a soft and creamy option, something smoky or spicy, and a cheese that's strong like blue cheese - just be sure to keep this one far from the other cheeses!
- Serve your cheese board with several small knives and utensils so that everyone can dig in together.
- You can assemble your cheese board a few hours before your party by leaving off the crackers and/or bread and covering your cheese board with cling wrap.