How to Make the Perfect Charcuterie Board

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Happy Thursday friends, I hope everyone’s week was great! I am, as always, looking forward to Friday tomorrow! We always love to do something fun to bring in the weekend. A lot of the time, we love to stay in, have a little date night, drink some wine and make a charcuterie board!

I almost always post fun little stories of my charcuterie boards to my Insta stories when we make them, and I always have at least a few people ask what all we include when we make it, where we get the stuff, what kinds of meats and cheeses are our faves, etc. So, I thought I would hop on here today and give you guys the 4-1-1 on how we make our charcuterie boards and include everything from what kind of cheese we buy, to where we got our fave charcuterie board!

First off, I’ll start by saying this is really something that started due to quarantine haha. We were trying to have fun, date nights in, but we were running out of ideas quickly. So one night, we decided to include some meat and cheese in our grocery order to go with our wine. We threw in some grapes and already had some preserves in the fridge, so we added those and before we knew it, we had a nice little spread to go with our wine night!

Now at the time, we just put everything on a plate and called it a night haha. But the more we started to do them, the more we wanted it to actually feel like we were having a wine night out at a winery! We even had our neighbors over after a few weeks for wine and a charcuterie board, and that’s when we knew… We needed to actually buy a charcuterie board.

I found a few that seemed really good and would get the job done, which I’ll link below. But we ended up going with this one, simply because it was the right size we needed for when we were having people over, and it came with everything we would need (little bowls, a cheese knife, even a dome if we wanted to get extra fancy!) when we hosted wine nights with our friends and family, which turns out, we LOVE doing! Plus we just LOVED the way it looked and how it went with our bar cart so perfectly! (Heehee I probably cared more about this than J did, but what can I say?! I like to decorate! P.S. Check out my post “10 Recent Home Decor Finds from Amazon” for even more of our favorite home stuff!) Also, if you’re looking for a seasonal charcuterie board, I found this pumpkin and this snowman one, both from Target! I actually just ordered both of them heehee, I figured they would be so cute for the holiday seasons!

Okay so now on to the steps and what we actually put on our charcuterie boards when we make them…

#1: Meats and Cheeses

We normally include a variety of different kinds of meats and cheeses in our charcuterie boards. We like to include different flavor meats and cheeses, but also different and varying textures. So we’ll include some hard cheeses and some soft cheeses, as well as some thinly sliced meats and some thicker meats.

Our favorite kinds of cheeses are: Brie (this pairs super well with apples!), Manchego (my personal fave, I’ll eat this by itself heehee), and Gouda.

For meats, we generally tend to go with: Prosciutto, Baby Genoa Salame, and Pepper Genoa Salame.

#2: Fruits

We always like to include at least 2 types of fruit, but sometimes we’ll do 3 if we’re hosting for a group instead of just us. Our favorites to include are green or red grapes and strawberries. If we’re adding a 3rd, we’ll also throw apple slices on there. (We particularly like to include apple slices when we have Brie cheese, since apples and Brie go so well together!)

#3: Jams/Preserves

Okay normally, I’m not a big jam kind of person. I never grew up liking jam or preserves of any type. BUT for some reason, if they are accompanied by a thin slice of meat and cheese on a cracker, I am A FAN!! We’ve come across a few different ones we like, but my personal fave is apricot preserves. It’s not too sweet, but I like the texture it adds to help balance the meat and cheese with the cracker.

#4: Nuts

We always like to have a little bowl of nuts to add a little saltiness in between bites of cracker, meat and cheese! We’ll normally just pick up a can of mixed nuts and toss them in a small bowl to put on the board. My favorites to make sure we get in the mix are cashews, pistachios and peanuts.

#5: Crackers

Lastly, we’ll pick up a couple different boxes of crackers while we’re at the store (normally just two), that way we have a variety and we aren’t just eating the same kind of cracker the whole time. We either get pita chips or the bagel crisps! I really love the ones that are flavored with garlic or something like that. They always go super well with the kinds of meats and cheeses we choose and taste super yummy!

So that’s it friends! It’s super easy to throw together a charcuterie board and we always have a really fun time doing it. Jordan and I both love to host and have people over so it’s always a fun thing to do and something special that our friends and family seem to like.

Do you make charcuterie boards often?? If so, what are some of the things you really like to include when you make them?

Thanks for reading lovelies and I hope you all get a chance to try out making your own charcuterie board! If you do, make sure to tag me @chaosandcoffeeblog on social so I can share you on my stories!

Have a great week friends and until the next post, Xx.

Cheers!!