How to Make a Charcuterie Board

Wondering how to make a Charcuterie Board? Learn how to pull one together the easy way – and how to make it look pretty, too!

Charcuterie boards are my favorite thing to prepare for any casual get-together, family event or reason to celebrate. My grandfather was the master of charcuterie boards and taught me how to put one together that’s not only tasty, but also beautiful.

You can easily make a charcuterie board for just a couple of people (or just for yourself!) or for a large group – all you need to do is adjust how much you pack on your board! It truly is the perfect party appetizer.

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient notes

How many varieties to pick of each food group

I like to use an easy formula when I put together my board: I pick the same count of cheeses, cold cuts, carbs, nibbled, spreads and fruit. I just vary the amount depending on how many people I’m serving.

Here, I chose to use 4 of everything. This size board will serve a decent amount of people as a party appetizer for some casual grazing. My rule of thumb is as follows:

• 1 person: 1 or 2 of each group; if 2 then very small amounts
• 2 people: 2 of each group, but small amounts
• 3 people: 2 of each group, but decent amounts
• 4-6 people: 3 of each group
• 6-8 people: 4 of each group with moderate amounts
• more than 8 people: 4 of each group with generous amounts

Quantities of each item needed

When making a cheese or charcuterie board, the big question is always how much food you should serve.

It’s obviously hard to gauge if you’ll have big or small eaters (so cliché, but I’d guess a party with teenage boys would require more per person than a Manhattan socialite get-together, you know what I mean?).

But here are my rules of thumb:

• 3-4oz cheese and meat combined per person, as an appetizer
• OR 6-8oz cheese and meat combined per person as a meal
• 2-3 pieces of fruit per person
• 3-8 oz bread/crackers per person (3-4 as an appetizer, 6-8 as a meal)
• Enough nibbles so each person can eat from each. For dried fruit, I like to put 2 pieces per person. For things like nuts and olives, a small handful per person.

Keep in mind: Leftovers of a charcuterie board make a great lunch the next day! I’m not for crazy over-buying, but if in doubt, I play it safe and go for leftovers rather than not having enough food.

The cheese

I like to pick a variety of cheeses. Even if I make just a small charcuterie board, I always make sure to pick at least one soft and one semi-hard or hard cheese.

For a large cheese board like here, I choose a hard cheese, a semi-hard, a soft and a fresh/spreadable cheese. Here, I picked parmesan, a young Manchego, Brie and a soft goat’s cheese log.

For more ideas:

Hard cheeses

• Parmesan
• Pecorino Romano
• Vintage Gouda
• Asiago
• Comté

Semi-hard cheeses

• Cheddar
• young Gouda
• young Manchego
• Gruyère
• Havarti

Soft cheeses

• Brie
• Camembert
• Roquefort
• Gorgonzola
• Mozzarella
• Feta

Fresh/spreadable cheeses

• Ricotta
• soft goat’s cheese (Chèvre)
• Neufchatel
• Farmer’s cheese

The cold cuts

So, technically, charcuterie means cold cuts. But we’ve come accustomed to call this kind of party platter will all the things a charcuterie board… So there you go, potato – potahto.

For my cold cuts, I just went to the store and picked an Italian variety platter. It had Parma ham, Prosciutto Cotto, salami and bresaola.

I don’t have much to say about the cold cuts – pick 4 you enjoy, and make sure you don’t buy all the same type; eg. make sure you don’t pick all dry cured ones or all cooked ones (here, the Prosciutto Cotto is a cooked product (the light pink one in the photo) and the other three are cured.

The spreads

Dips and spreads are a must with any charcuterie board! The really elevate the flavor of everything and make it feel extra-special.

I like to serve a choice of sweet and savory spreads. Here I chose honey, apricot preserves, sun-dried tomato spread and coarse Dijon mustard.

More ideas

Sweet spreads

• any fruit preserve, jam or jelly
• a runny honey
• any fruit chutney
• any sweet relish
• cranberry sauce

Savory spreads

• honey mustard
• smooth mustard
• whole grain mustard
• any savory relish
• pesto
• sun-dried tomato paste
• aioli or other mayo-based dips

The fruit

I love the look (and taste!) of fresh fruit on a party platter. Makes it look kind of fancy, adds color… and I feel like I’m a hostess in the early 19th century, when exotic fruit was a luxury and showed your wealth. Now we just get to pick it all at the grocery store, but you know, the feeling counts ?

I pretty much always choose grapes and figs. Since it’s winter right now, I also added mandarin oranges (found pretty ones with the leaves still attached!) and kiwi fruit.

I try to strike a balance between sweet fruit and more acidic fruit, so there’s something for everyone. I also try to avoid fruit that’s difficult to eat/fruit that doesn’t keep well when sliced.

More ideas

Sweet fruit

• Grapes
• Figs
• Pineapple (sliced)
• Blueberries
• Strawberries

Acidic fruit

• Kiwi fruit (peeled and sliced – I totally forgot to peel for the photos!)
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Oranges (segmented)
• Mandarin oranges (they can also be sweet depending on the exact type!)

The nibbles

These are the fun bit for casual grazing! They also help to fill in any empty space on your board to make it look pretty.

Here, you can add anything from dried fruit and nuts to things like pickles, olives and marinated vegetables.

I chose nuts, dates, small pickles and marinated olives for a bit of variety.

More ideas

• Dried cranberries or raisins
• Other dried fruit, such as mango, pineapple, apricots or dates
• Any kind of olives, I strongly suggest using pitted olives!
• Favorite nuts: Roasted/salted pistachios, walnuts, pecans (both either roasted or raw) or smoked almonds.

The carbs

Finally, we arrive at the carbs: Bread and crackers for nibbling, dipping, spreading and layering with cold cuts and cheeses!

I like to provide a variety of more seasoned and less seasoned crackers, and a bread. Here I chose Grissini, cheese crackers, salted crackers and a crusty Baguette.

More ideas

• Ritz crackers
• Cream crackers
• Goldfish – if you’re serving kids! They love it.
• Wasa Thins
• Fruity crisps
• Olive crackers
• Cheesy crackers

How to make a Charcuterie Board

The board

Start by choosing your board. If you want to serve a group of 8+, you’ll need a pretty substantial board! The right size is pretty essential, if it’s too small it will look like too little food with all the gaps. If it’s too big, you’ll have an overflowing board and things will fall off when people try to serve themselves.

Mine in the photos is 20 x 16 inches and it’s pretty big. Perfect for a cheeseboard to serve 8 people.

When I make one for just 2-3 people, I use a round board with a diameter of 12 inches.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any other pointers to go off, but I hope you’ll find the right size board with this guidance.

How to assemble your board

1. I like to start with the main parts. First, I place the cheeses in roughly the four corners of the board.

2. Next, I place the cold cuts in between the cheeses.

3. Now, I add the spreads. I like to place them in small glass bowls and re-fill as needed.

I like to place the spreads next to items they go with on the board. Here, I placed the honey next to the goat’s cheese, the apricot jam next to the Manchego, the sun-dried tomato spread next to the cooked ham and the Dijon mustard with the Brie.

4. Now, I nestle the fruit in places where there’s still a lot of empty space.

You don’t need to put the same type of fruit together – you can spread it out like I did with the kiwi fruit. Just make sure you fill in any large gaps.

5. The nibbles are perfect to fill both small and large gaps. I always place “wet” nibbles (here the marinated olives and the pickles) in small bowls and place them on a corner that hasn’t much going on yet.

The “dry” nibbles (here the nuts and dates) I use to fill in any smaller empty spots.

6. Finally, I place the crackers and bread wherever there is any space left.

I try to place them mostly around the edge of the board to fill any gaps there. But you can also nestle them in the middle where the board needs a little extra something.

In the end, just add some spoons/forks/spreading knives for serving! And just like that, your perfect party platter is ready ?

What to do with leftovers

If your guests are civil eaters (ahem, mine mostly aren’t when it comes to party platters and charcuterie boards…), you can easily pack up and store the leftover cheese and cold cuts in the fridge for 3-5 days, providing they didn’t sit out in the warmth for more than an hour or so. If they were out at room temperature for a long time, I make sure to eat leftovers the next day.

If you’re very uncertain about how much your people are going to eat, put out half the amount and then re-fill as needed.

Sliced fruit should be eaten on the same day, or kept in the fridge for up to a day.

Crackers can be stored in the fridge for up to a day. They usually touch hands, cold cuts etc on the board, so please do not put them back in their box to store in the cupboard. The same goes for nuts and dried fruit you put directly on the board.

Pickles, olives etc in their own bowl can easily go back in the fridge for a week.

For the spreads, I don’t store leftovers. I prefer using small bowls and re-filling as needed.

More easy party food

PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram.

Printable recipe