Charcuterie Board Ideas - A Detailed How-to Guide

An epic guide with useful information of building a basic and easy charcuterie board.

Charcuterie platter is trending all over the place right now. If you take a look at Pinterest, you'll see tons and tons of beautiful images of easy charcuterie board. Ever wonder how to build one as pretty as those yourself? Well, this epic charcuterie board ideas guide can totally help you out.

What is charcuterie?

Charcuterie (shar-COO-tuhr-ree) is the production of pates, terrines, galantines, sausages and similar foods. Traditionally, charcuterie was limited to these products.

However, over the years, charcuterie has included more products and become an art and science itself. You can easily see charcuterie platter on the menu of many contemporary restaurants nowadays.

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What to put on a charcuterie board?

A charcuterie platter or board is an assortment of cured meats or forcemeats, cheese, breads, crackers, fruits, and nuts. They are carefully arranged in the most artistic way on a big serving platter/board.

That being said, here is the break down of items included in this charcuterie board ideas guide:

Forcemeats

Whole muscle - single muscles that are cured or smoked. The meats and their origins are:

1. Cured pork leg:
   • Jamon serrano (Spain)
   • Prosciutto /pro-SHOO-toe/ (Italy)
   • Jamon iberico (Spain)
   • Jamon de bayonne (France)
   • Country ham (USA)
2. Cured pork belly:
   • Bacon (USA)
   • Pancetta (Italy)
   • Speck (Italy)
3. Cured pork shoulder:
   • Coppa (Italy)
4. Cured pork loin:
   • Lomo (Spain)
5. Air-dried beef loin or eye of round:
   • Bresaola (Italy)

Sausages - cured mixture of ground meat, fat and spices:

• Mortadella (Italy)
• Salami (Italy)
• Chorizo (Spain)
• Saucisson (Spain)
• Sopressata (Italy)
• Sausages (USA)

Spreadable - Ground or pureed meat, fat, and seasonings in a mold (sometimes includes livers)

• Pate (France)
• Terrine (France)
• Mousse (France)
• Rillettes (France)

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Cheese

When pairing cheese with charcuterie meat, you should consider matching the country of origin. This is what most of restaurants usually apply on their meat & cheese board.

Or you can just go with your favorite cheese if this is too much of a hassle for a homemade charcuterie board. At the end of the day, building charcuterie board is all about fun and empower your artistic spirit.

Italy origin - Parmesan paired with prosciutto

France origin - Brie paired with Jambon de bayonne

Spain origin - Chorizo paired with manchego

Breads and crackers

Breads and crackers are another popular choices for charcuterie because they are great for spreadable meats and cheeses.

They also provide a but of crunch and texture; also they can cleanse your palate in between different kinds of forcemeats.

Fresh fruits

Another great components on any charcuterie platter. Like breads and crackers, fresh fruit provide a different texture and a great 'break' between meats and cheeses.

Also, olives, honey and jam are other famous picks while building a cheese and meat board.

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Equipment used for charcuterie board

You can go for a marble platter. The plus point of this marble board is it can keep a cool temperature for both cheese and forcemeats. However, it is a little bit heavy to handle and fragile to store.

A bamboo/wood board is a very popular option. Though it can't retain the ideal temperature like marble platter, it is more affordable and easier to store.

Slate stone platter is recently used a lot in restaurant for all kinds of thing like serving steak, chicken, or cheese & meat. If you want a sleek and modern look for your charcuterie board, this is a great pick.

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How to build charcuterie board?

There are not a unique rule to build such a board. You can go wild with your imagination and creativity. Here are my recommendations in building this amazing cheese and meat board.

First, I will put down any bold thing (like a small cup of honey) and meat options first. But don't put them in one place, try to spread them out as much as possible. Because these meats tend to have the same pattern color, it is best to not put them together.

Second, start adding cheese and crackers/breads to create color contrast on the board. I use color code as a guide to put them together. However, you can place cheese and meat with the same origin next to each others.

Last but not least, fill in the black with olives, fruits and nuts. Then tada, you have such an epic charcuterie board.

Related recipes

Want something simpler but still as epic as this board? How about go for this incredibly easy baked camembert? It's easier and faster to make if you only have a party of 2 or 3.

Wanna make your own bread instead? Try this fluffy condensed milk bread, raisin bread, or Parker House rolls; they pair good with this cheese & meat board.

Have left-over cheese after creating this epic board? How about using them and make this awesome but easy cheesy beef nachos? You'll love it.

Did you make this recipe? If so please leave a rating and let me know how it went in the comment section. Also, don't forget to tag me #cookmorphosis @cookmorphosis on social media.