Charcuterie boards are full packed full of elegance. They are perfect for parties, small gatherings and date nights. They elevate the experience of the event, they taste fantastic and they require minimal effort to put together. But how do you go about creating the perfect charcuterie board?
Sometimes putting the board together can feel like an overwhelming task. We’ve all seen that cheese isle and where do you even start? Season and Societe is here to help make it easy. We put together some of our favorites and a few tips and tricks to help you create the perfect charcuterie board.
The Board
Your cheese board is the backbone for your perfect charcuterie board. To create an elegant display, choose a board made from natural, quality materials such as wood, stone or marble.
If you choose to go the wood charcuterie board route, we strongly recommend a dense hardwood like teak. This is the best option to minimize stain meats and cheese oils.
If you are hosting a large party, you could go the ultimate route and choose to forego the board altogether. Use an island or large table, use butcher paper as a table runner, and arrange your spread.
Boards we are loving right now:
Black Marble Charcuterie Board
The Goods
Cheese
Let’s start with the cheese, as the cheese is the heart of this board. Choose a variety of cheeses. For a well-rounded charcuterie board, make sure your choices vary in color, contrast, hardness and taste. At S&S, we suggest a minimum of 2-3 different cheeses, but you can certainly do more depending on your party size, budget, etc.
Meat
Choose a variety of meats to compliment your cheese selections. For smaller parties, date nights and appetizers, 2-3 meats should be sufficient.
Bread
Select a couple of different breads or crackers to add to your tray. We suggest you choose 1 soft bread, like a baguette and a couple different cracker options. Be sure to keep one of those cracker options pretty simple, but feel free to be adventurous with the other – you just might stumble on to your next favorite combination.
- French baguette (cut into 1″ slices)
- Crisps with fig or other dried fruit
- Thin crackers/crisps with Rosemary
Salty + Savory Snacks
Every good charcuterie tray needs a couple of salty and savory snacks! Choose items like pickled vegetables and olives – snacks that compliment meat and cheese and are easy to eat as finger foods.
Fuit
Don’t forget to add some fruit as a sweet treat to offset those salty snacks!
Dips + Jams
Honey, mustard, fig jam, pepper jelly and other unique fruit spreads make a wonderful addition to a charcuterie board. Their sweetness brings balance to the salty and savory flavors, and the colors will add nice contrast to your board.
Nuts
No charcuterie board is complete without some sort of nuts. We think almonds provide the best compliment to a charcuterie board. Try finding something with a strong flavor like truffle oil, smokehouse, or sea salt.
The Presentation
Arrange all your goodies on your board and enjoy. We like to mock up our arrangement on the board before we open all the items. This makes it easier to move things around and work on spacing.
Charcuterie boards are so easy to throw together for any event. Use our guide above for your next date night, party of get together to create the perfect charcuterie board. As always, we would love to see your creations, so be sure to post a photo on instagram and tag us with @Season.Societe and #elevatedgardenculture!
