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The one thing this quarantine has taught me is being creative in the kitchen.
We’ve always made charcuterie (pronounced shar-koo-ter-ree) boards pretty much since forever. Sometimes, you just want to have a little light snack and a variety of fresh foods to choose from.
After playing around with different flavors, I decide to present to you a guide on how to make a pretty dope charcuterie board. All of my suggestions can also be made vegan-style. I hope to do a vegan charcuterie board in the near future.
Where to begin?
You don’t need to buy a special board for your charcuterie plate. You can even use a plate, honestly! We usually use cutting boards. You will need, however, a flat surface.
If possible, have small bowls available for dipping and scooping.
You can use a variety of dips and spreads. It’ll be easier to dig them out if they’re in a small bowl on the board. This will come in handy if you have a lot of guests over.
Add color and texture.
The more colorful your food is, the better. A friend always told me to eat the rainbow when it came to food and it’s pretty solid advice. You don’t want all of the same color because that looks hella boring and uninspired. You want to pick and choose what to try next. The colors can come in fruits, cheeses, and different vegetables.
Choose at least three meats and three kinds of cheese.
For variety sake. You don’t want to eat the same thing over and over. You want to explore with the meats and the cheeses. There’s no wrong way to do a charcuterie board. While many have stayed with cured meats, you can also explore with fresh sliced meat.
The cheese I use are often of the exploratory kind – I love Brie, goat’s cheese, and I recently became a fan of sheep’s cheese. If I want to splurge, I go for one pricey cheese and the keep the other ones minimal.
Have a variety of bread and crackers – 3-4.
While our spread had many crackers, I love the variety of that. Every time I built a snack, I was experimenting with different flavors and it was always a delicious surprise. Table water crackers are popular because they’re very plain, and just mainly add a plain base to what you’ll create.
Dip, baby, dip.
Obviously, you don’t want to use cheese dip because you’ll already have cheese on the board. Explore with different dips. You can have salsa. You can have my personal favorite, chili fig spread. Again, there is no wrong answer here. You want some sweet spreads with a hint of spice, but not too hot!
What to pair?
I’m a big fan of light white wines. I highly recommend the McBride Sisters and their Black Girl Magic brand. If you want to splurge, I also highly recommend Santa Margherita’s Pinot Grigio. For red wines, you can’t go wrong with Earl Stevens (rapper E-40).
Have fun.
The beautiful thing about charcuterie boards is the flexibility of them. You can make it based on holidays or special occasions. You can also just make one for a little snack.
For example, a Christmas charcuterie board would have chestnuts, cranberry sauce, grapes, and probably in shape of a tree. A Valentine’s charcuterie board would have lots of chocolate, berries, and in shape of a heart.
You really can’t go wrong here. 🙂 Enjoy!
