Arranging a Holiday Charcuterie Board
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| Festive Christmas Cheeses |
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| Add seasonal flavors to make your cheese boards festive |
Charcuterie boards aren't anything new, but there are endless ways to make each & every cheese board feel fresh & new.
The secret to making your charcuterie boards exciting as well as timeless is to work with in-season ingredients as well as flavors. As we approach the holiday season, flavors of cinnamon, cranberries, warm spices, & dips/jams such as figs & dates really pack a flavor punch on your boards.
Just as seasonal flavors add a festive pop to your dinner cheese board, using components like cranberries, pomegranates, & fig leaves add seasonal colors & textures to your boards.
The holiday cheese board in this post was the first charcuterie board I ever made. I looked to advice from Ina Garten when arranging this holiday vegetarian-friendly cheese board.
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| Cube your cheese into stars for a holiday-touch |
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| Add festive cheese knives to be seasonally on-point! |
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| Christmas Cheeseboard |
Garten told Vogue,
"A friend used to work with me. She was the chef at Barefoot Contessa a long time ago. She was from Europe and had a very European style. I was making a cheese platter for a customer, and it must have looked like a dog’s breakfast. She walked up to me and said, “Take everything off the platter.” I did. She said, “Now put a big bunch of grapes right in the middle, put the cheeses around it. Then put the crackers and dried fruit in bunches—not everywhere, just a big pile of orange apricots, a big pile of purple grapes, and purple figs. Then stop yourself.”
She Continues, That was probably 40 years ago and I’ve followed that ever since. The importance is to have blocks of color and have them be simple and accessible."
I think the secret, something else I learned watching a different Garten video of her making a cheeseboard is using components such as fig leaves {in my case, I used hydrangea leaves} to accent the board as well as act as a landing pad for dips & jams.
Lastly, when composing a holiday charcuterie board, keeping with a simple theme, such as a vegetarian-friendly board can help add both a textural & flavorful theme to your boards. Using cookie cutters to cut out shapes for certain cheeses adds another level of visual interest to your boards as you can layer the cutout cheese over your crackers.
Curating a collection of fun & seasonal cheese knives can also add visual flare to your boards. Note the Christmas tree cheese knife as well as the snowman cheese knife.
I hope you find these tips for stylishly arranging your very own charcuterie board helpful. If nothing more, delicious.
The Ingredients in this Holiday Charcuterie Board
- Brenton Plant-Based Multigrain Crackers
- Gotham Greens Green Goddess Dip
- Walnuts
- Dates
- Figs
- Black Grapes
- White Cheddar Cranberry Cheese {Aldis}
- Cranberry & Cinnamon Goat Cheese {Aldis}
- Pepper Jack Cheese sliced into star shapes {Aldis}
- Hydrangea Leaves
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| Vegetarian-Friendly Cheese Board |
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