I have family members who have “the touch.” Whatever they arrange — whether flowers, table décor, or a food display (like charcuterie) — looks beautiful. That gene skipped me.
I’ve read about flower arranging. I can follow all the “rules” of flower arranging, and when I arrange flowers, they still always just look like I stuck some flowers in a vase or jar. Ditto for tablescapes…and charcuterie. Which means that if I’m going to do these things, I need simple. I need something that will be reasonably aesthetically-pleasing, even if it doesn’t look like artistry when I’m finished with it. Here are some tips for how to to make a simple charcuterie board.
Include Variety When Choosing Your Foods
Because you’re keeping it simple, you don’t want too much variety. You don’t want dozens of different foods to work with if you’re trying to do this yourself. (Although another option for simplifying would be to build something of a “potluck” charcuterie — assign each person to bring a particular piece to assemble onto the board.) You probably either want few categories of food with large variety of each (e.g. nuts and cheese, but multiple varieties of nuts and multiple varieties of cheese) or more variety of “categories” without a lot of variation within them (e.g. veggies, meat, cheese, nuts, olives…but only one, or at most two, of each).
It’s also helpful if you include some variety of color. For instance, if you’re doing a whole plate of cheeses, make sure some are white cheeses and some are yellow cheeses. The contrast will add interest. If you’re doing meats, turkey and roast beef will have more contrast than turkey and chicken.
SOME FOODS TO CONSIDER FOR A CHARCUTERIE BOARD:
- lunch meats: cubed, or rolled-up slices
- jerky bites
- cheese
- firm fruits, like grapes or apple slices
- dried fruits
- olives
- raw vegetables cut into bite-sized pieces
- nuts, seeds, Festive Chickpeas, and/or other crunchy/crispy bite-sized things
- crackers
SOME TWO-FOOD CHARCUTERIE OPTIONS:
- meat & cheese
- cheese & grapes
- nuts/seeds/Festive Chickpeas & cheese
- cheese & crackers
- nuts/seeds/Festive Chickpeas & veggies
(Notice that all of these include a protein option! You can go other routes — like a fruit and veggie tray — but you might want to supplement with protein some other way.)
What Are Festive Chickpeas?
You’ve probably figured out by now that Festive Chickpeas had something to do with this post. They sent us some chickpeas to try, and a cutting board to use for our charcuterie board. Festive Chickpeas are roasted, and in most cases flavored, chickpeas that come in packets and are for eating as snacks.
They make a great substitute for nuts, especially if nut allergies are an issue, because they have a similar shape and crunch. (Although we found them to be harder than nuts.)
They come in a “plain” variety with just sea salt, in a variety of flavors you probably associate with potato chips, such as sour cream & onion and honey BBQ, and in a couple “spicy” versions.
Like nuts, they’re high in protein, and you can use them in your charcuterie the same way you would use nuts.
Include Variety When Preparing Your Charcuterie Elements
Variety is the primary element that makes your charcuterie board interesting. Ensuring some variety in your actual foods goes a long way, and so can the way you prepare the foods. Some foods just are different — e.g. round olives or grapes are naturally going to contrast with nearly any way you can prepare meat. But you can create additional variety with the preparation of some things.
If you’re including meats, you can cube it, or if it’s sliced, you can roll it up or fold it into quarter-circles. Fan it, stack it, or place it in rows on the tray.
If you’re including vegetables, cut them in different ways. My tray featured carrots and radishes. The carrots I cut into sticks; the radishes I cut into rounds.
When you lay things out, you can choose to vary the layout, too. Sometimes you won’t want to — the simplicity of a set of neat rows might be exactly what you’re looking for. But varying the direction in which you place things, or putting some in a circular layout, or putting some smaller items in small bowls nestled among other items, may increase interest.
Consider Adding One “Special” Element
You don’t have to step everything up to step something up — and add a lot of punch. If you keep all the other elements simple, but choose one to do something fancy with, that can add a lot of visual impact to your display without making it crazy-difficult.
My original plan was to make radish roses. They would take a little extra preparation (slicing, soaking for a few minutes in salt water, then rolling up and spearing with toothpicks), but would look beautiful on the board, even while everything else was just simply cut or rolled and placed there.
Unfortunately, the radish roses didn’t work out (I think I didn’t get them cut thinly enough), which brings us to the final tip:
Roll With the Punches
Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you’d hoped. Adjust and move forward. I don’t have radish roses on my tray. I have a slightly-weird row of radish slices. It wasn’t the original plan. But you probably wouldn’t know that if I weren’t sitting here telling you. Chances are, no one else will notice that thing that feels to you like a major fail in the plan.
“Snackish Lunch”
I wanted to include one other thing here, even though it isn’t quite “charcuterie,” per se. When my kids were little, they liked to have what they refer to as a “snackish lunch.” This is when they have a few different, separate elements — much like on a charcuterie board — rather than a single “entrée” like a sandwich.
We usually just put ours on a plate, but some people like to use mini muffin tins to hold the various foods, especially for kids who are particular about their food touching.
Most of the same foods that make good charcuterie inclusions are also great options for a “snackish lunch,” just be mindful of choking hazards with littles. A few foods may need to be omitted, depending on the age of the child (I probably wouldn’t give the Festive Chickpeas to a toddler), but some may just need to be cut differently than you would cut them for the grown-ups.
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