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- A charcuterie board is the ultimate appetizer for any holiday party or gathering. And if you're a visual person like me, it's also a lot of fun to assemble and put together. Plus, I love that there's no one right or wrong way to make it. So you can add your own creative flair, though I do have a few tips in the video for you. So in today's video, I'm gonna show you how to make my holiday charcuterie board that is perfect for Thanksgiving or Christmas when you have a bunch of friends and family over. It's super easy to make.
It has a variety of meats, cheeses, fruits, nuts, and other nibbles, and it will tide your guests over for several hours until you serve your main course. All right, let me show you how to make it. The first thing you're gonna wanna do is grab a board, and today I'm gonna show you how to make it on an 18-inch charcuterie board, and I will leave a link for this below. A 15 to 18-inch board is considered your medium board range that is great for your holiday parties, your family gatherings, but you can use any size board.
You can go smaller. This marble board is a bit smaller. I've got a smaller wood one, so if you've only got two or four people coming. You could even use the large cutting board that you guys see me use all of the time. And you could even use serving platters and trays like this if you don't have a cutting board. A variety of sizes for a variety of different parties and gatherings, depending on how many friends and family you're planning on having over. After you've selected your board, the first thing I like placing are all of the different cheeses.
For my 18-inch board today, I'll add five different cheeses, including a sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, smoked Gouda, Fromage Blanc, and brie. Odd numbers of cheeses are great to add visual interest, and I always recommend mixing textures and flavors, defaulting of course to the cheeses that you and your guests will enjoy eating the most. So you could also use chevre, Boursin, or mascarpone for soft cheeses, Havarti, Gruyere, or Muenster for semi-soft cheeses, and Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano for hard cheeses. And if you're adventurous and love blue cheese, you can use Gorgonzola, Roquefort, or Stilton.
And once your cheeses are cubed, sliced, or added to small little plates, spread them out across your board. The second item I add to the board are sliced meats. And again, I'll stick with an odd number and choose three different meats. I personally love summer sausage, so that's always a must for me. And I'll just slice that up. Though, don't forget to remove the outer casing before serving, which I should have done before slicing. I also love to roll up prosciutto so it's easy to pick up. And let's be honest, it just looks better this way, especially when you've got several pieces lined up next to each other. And lastly, I'll add salami, and instead of placing it flat on the board,
I'll fold each piece in half, then in half again, so they've got this pretty fan-looking shape. Again, these different slices, rolls, and folds add texture and visual appeal to the board for one wow-worthy presentation. I'll place the meats next to the cheeses and try to spread them out across the board. I always try to remember that guests are reaching from all different sides, so a little cheese and meat pairing should be reachable from all different angles. (soft music)
The third item I add after the sliced meats are bowls filled with sweet and savory items, like honey, stone-ground mustard, marinated artichoke hearts, and olives. A little drizzle of honey or a briny olive is just so darn good with the different meats and cheeses on a little appetizer plate. All right, next step is adding the crackers. Again, mix different shapes, sizes, textures, and flavors of crackers on your board.
I'm using all gluten-free crackers because I'm gluten-free, and I've linked those in the recipe card on my website for you. But, of course, feel free to choose your favorites. A combination of light and crispy, hardy and seedy, and flatbread crackers always works well. And the last item I place on the board are fruits and nibbles. I'll de-seed an apple and a pear, then thinly slice those up and add them to the board, and you can just nestle them in between and around some of the other items. And for all of the little gaps that are left, it's really easy to fill those with dried apricots
or other dried fruit, fresh grapes, and nuts like cashews, almonds, pistachios, and my favorite for the holidays, which are my candied pecans. And I have a separate recipe for making those on my website. The finishing touch is adding a flavor enhancer to my Fromage Blanc cheese, and I'm drizzling some apricot raspberry preserves, but a fig jam or homemade cranberry sauce would be great as well. And then I'll add a dipper into the honey, and I could not, for the life of me, think of the word dipper during the taste test at the end, which you'll see here in a second.
Once you're done, take a step back and admire your stunning charcuterie board. It really does look amazing from every angle. And if you wanna make this process even easier to assemble before a holiday or party, you can pre-slice your cheeses and meats the day before and pre-filled the small bowls with dips, spreads, mustard, and jams, and then just cover and place those in the fridge. This makes it really easy to just place everything on your board right before your guests arrive. This is a one mighty, tasty lunch for me today.
I don't even know where to start. There are too many good options. You know, a little cube of cheese is always a good place to start. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I think the key to a really amazing charcuterie board is just varying up the different textures and flavors and sizes and shapes. You just want a lot of variety for that visual interest. A couple of my favorite combinations, too, if I'm gonna put some items on a plate, would be some prosciutto, brie, and honey. That's always a great combination, so dig into that brie
and then drizzle a little bit of honey on top. And these little honey things, I don't even know, what are the names of these little honey things, but they're so cute. Drizzle some of that on. But together, that is one tasty combination. The savory flavors of the marinated artichokes or the brininess of the olives, or again, that savory kind of chunky texture of the stone-ground mustard, just really add a lot to the cheese. It's amazing if you take a piece of cheese, like this smoked Gouda, and just dip it in the stone-ground mustard, it really adds just incredible flavor. So on the full blog post on my website, I will list a few flavor combinations
that usually work really well together for these, so that if you're doing a smaller board and you just wanna focus on one flavor profile or one theme, you can do that as well. And when you're serving this up for a party or a holiday or gathering, I do recommend slicing the cheeses and the meats ahead of time one day in advance, and just storing them in sealed containers in the fridge, because slicing the cheeses and meats does take just a little bit of time. So if you can do that ahead, that's always a time savings as well. And then after you've enjoyed all of these savory and creamy and crunchy textures that are so good on the charcuterie board, a little bit of the apples, the pears, the dried apricots
or the candied pecans, which by the way, if you have not made that recipe yet on my website, I highly recommend it for the holidays, it just really rounds things out and gives it that, like, finishing touch. Lastly, as I mentioned at the beginning, there is no one right way to make a charcuterie board. This is just one idea. It's one that I do often. I hope you guys enjoy it as well. But I would love to see all of your different creations, no matter the size, the shape, or how many items that you have on it. So don't forget to tag me when you make it. And if you enjoyed today's video,
make sure to give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment below on what you might put on your charcuterie board. And with that, I'll see you guys in the next video. (soft music)
