3 Charcuterie Boards For Any Occasion (Traditional, Breakfast, Dessert) | Allrecipes

Charcuterie boards are all the rage and today I'm going to show you how to build a beautiful one. We know it as a beautiful display of meats and cheeses with different accoutrements and we're going to talk about all the components that make a perfect charcuterie board, starting with the meats. That is the most important part. Popular choices in the meat selection include things that are cured such as salamis and prosciutto. It's also nice to include sausages of some sort, as well as pate or roulade. You definitely want to include some variety, so I like to choose about three different types of meats. And listen, a charcuterie board can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you would like. You could take something as expensive as this soppressata, but you could also just use sliced pepperoni from the deli section. The second component of a charcuterie board is the cheese. I like at least two to three different types of cheese on the charcuterie board, ranging in texture. So an example of a hard cheese would be something like a parmesan or a manchego. A semi-hard or semi-soft would be something like a good gouda cheese or a cheddar. A creamier cheese would be something like a brie. Also in that soft category is goat cheese or even blue cheese. Now some people don't like the stinky cheese on there. I think everything has a time and place. Don't be intimidated by the price of charcuterie boards. A good selection of cheeses like this could cost you upwards of $30 just for a few pieces, but we can do this on a much, much cheaper scale. You could find a nice block of cheddar or a wedge of brie for about $5 and for the spreadable cheese you could even use cream cheese with a little topping. The third component to a charcuterie board and probably the most important as far as I'm concerned are the accoutrements. The whole thing about enjoying a charcuterie board is the building of the perfect bite and the accoutrements are where it happens. So I broke them down into three categories. The first being the briny or salty category. So those are things like your pickles and your olives. This is a great time to make use of that olive bar in the grocery store, although it can get quite pricey so I'm going to show you a way to cut the cost of that. Pickling your own vegetables are easy. I happen to love the pickled onions, but you could also add some sliced carrots in here, cauliflower, green beans, whatever you're feeling. You simply add them to a bowl or a jar, make a simple mixture of vinegar. I like to use equal parts apple cider vinegar and just plain white distilled vinegar. Just whisk in some sugar and some peppercorns and a little bit of salt. We'll place this over some heat and let the sugar and salt dissolve and then we pour it over our vegetables and let it sit for a night. When they're done they take on this beautiful pink color. They're soft. These are just great to keep on hand. The thing about the briny and salty category is that it balances out that richness from the meat and cheese. It cuts through with that vinegar. Again, the components to a perfect bite. The next category in our accoutrement component is something sweet. Things that fit in this category are things like dried fruits, fresh fruit, jams, jellies, and honey. The final category in the accoutrement section is tang and texture. You achieve that by things like nuts, spreads, and mustards. The final component to a perfect charcuterie board is what I like to call a crispy canvas. These are things like your crackers or bread slices. For those people that aren't into the carbs, a good choice here might be something like a slice of cucumber or a big crunchy carrot. All right, let's build this thing. But first I wanted to talk about why we love charcuterie boards so much. Comment below and let me know what your favorite part of enjoying a charcuterie board is. Okay, so now when it comes to building the board, the million dollar question is how much do I buy? If this is meant to be an appetizer that's going to go along with a lot of other foods at a party, then you want to figure about two ounces of meat and one to two ounces of cheese per person. However, if you're serving this as the main entree, and listen, snack dinners are super popular, especially in my family, then you want to probably double those portions. So about four ounces of meat and about three ounces of cheese. Before you actually start placing the meats and everything on your tray, you want to sort of plan it out. So go ahead and kind of plan where you're going to put your things. Be sure you get your meats really thinly sliced because it makes it stretch a lot further and it makes it easy to fold. Also, if you're going to include something that guests can slice themselves, it's nice to go ahead and get it started for them. It gives them permission to go ahead and eat. When it comes to building, you want to put your larger items down first. That's going to be what you have the most of, which are, in this case, your meats and cheeses. Also, put things down close together that complement each other. It shows what goes well together and will help create that perfect bite. All right, after your meats and cheeses are down, now it's time for all those accoutrements. So this is a great time to invest in little bowls from garage sales or discount stores and just place them around so that you kind of have a roadmap of where you want to put your accoutrements. It's a work of art and it's such a pleasure to make. It's very soothing and I think I really like it because it involves no cooking. I could serve this for dinner or just snacks, but to me, I could eat this for every meal. I'm going to finish it off by putting in a few utensils to make service go smoothly. Just try to grab something from each component and I guarantee it will be the perfect bite. I'll start with my canvas, add the something sweet. I think I'll come over here for some prosciutto, a little bit of cheese, and now a little bite of something crunchy. And I'll top it off with a Marcona almond for some crunch. Here we go. Oh my gosh. I forgot something. I almost forgot to tell you the perfect pairing with charcuterie. And for me, that is something bubbly. You have so much richness going on on this platter that the bubbles and the effervescence and the perfect acidity from a sparkling wine such as Lambrusco or Prosecco is going to go so great. Now let me try that again. It's a party. I'm feeling so good now. I'm going to show you two more charcuterie boards that are not actually charcuterie boards. A breakfast charcuterie board and a dessert charcuterie board. If it doesn't have meat, I know it's not a charcuterie board, but it's just fun to say. It's fun to look at. They're fun to eat and they're easy to serve and clean up. Let me just build my first ever breakfast charcuterie board. I think it's going to be pretty epic. Once you go with a theme, everything seems to come together. I'm going to start with the meats. So bacon and sausage, but I've got some more up my sleeve. Also like to consider things that taste good at room temperature. Bacon and sausage, you can eat anytime. I also think a great choice here would be some ham off the bone, just sliced from the deli section. This will go great with biscuits, toast, or even crackers, whatever we decide to use as our crispy canvas. So I'm also going to add a little bit of smoked salmon here because this will go great with some little mini bagels and some cream cheese. Just loving where this is going. This board is creating a perfect opportunity to keep it easy. You can find all sorts of little convenience products like these little mini biscuits, or these little mini pancakes. We can pop these in the microwave, place them on here. This would be a great little canvas to make that perfect bite. Voila! This one might excite me more than the original. Heck, you could even have breakfast for dinner. But to me, this is the perfect board for those teen sleepovers or those girls weekends or something. Right here. I present to you the breakfast board. We've got lots of protein, meat options, spreads, cheeses, canvases, and of course the sweet to balance out the salty. And for my final trick, a dessert board. And this is going to be the most impressive, easiest dessert you'll ever make, and the hit of the party. Just buy a bunch of prepackaged, pre-made desserts and throw them on a tray. Of course, there will be a little thought to it, but y'all keep it easy. When it comes to building this dessert board, I'm going to work my way backwards. So I'm going to start with those canvases and build on top of that. So I'm thinking great canvases would be things like cookies or slices of cake, even some pretzels that we could maybe dip in some chocolate. Some of these great little mini store-bought brownies would be great to top with all sorts of things. Great spreads to include here are just melted chocolate chips, maybe some marshmallow fluff, or this is the perfect time to use that cookie butter. I'm so proud of this, and it came together in just minutes. You could lean more in the charcuterie direction by adding cheese to this. A blue cheese with honey or a brie would work well here, but I kept it kid-friendly. So there you have it. You've got all the information you need to build a perfect charcuterie board. It's all about building that perfect bite and including a variety of textures and taste. You may not be enjoying company on a large scale, but these can totally be scaled down to just fit your family. 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