Charcuterie -101

First things first, how does one say charcuterie?

[shahr-koo-tuh–ree]

Great job! Now give yourself a pat on the back because pronouncing charcuterie is the hardest part about putting one of these boards together.

I was initially intimidated by the thought of piecing together a fancy meat and cheese board! After spending some time on Pinterest, I let a few blog posts convince me these aren’t so easy to make.

I’m here to tell you otherwise. I was quite surprised at how easy this was and pleased that things just naturally came together.

Here are a few tips:

• Use a variety of colors and textures to add dimension and appeal. With this tip alone, you really can’t go wrong.

• Don’t limit yourself to the typical meat/cheese board. I’ve seen some amazing breakfast boards, holiday boards, sweets boards, s’more boards and more!

• Keep in mind your board doesn’t have to be perfect and spacing should vary.

• Be mindful of spaces that may need more color and fill those as you go.

• Here is a suggested order to place your foods on the board.

1. 1. Place the bowls on the board keeping in mind they shouldn’t be equally or perfectly spaced.

2. Add the cheese and meats next to or near the bowls.

3. Add the “vehicles" AKA crackers, breads, and sliced veggies.

4. Fill the gaps with fillers like nuts, grapes, dried fruit, garnishes and anything else you’d like.

5. Remember there really is no wrong way to do this! These are just a few things that helped me have a system so I could make sure to fit everything on the board while keeping color, texture and spacing in mind.

Here are the items I used for this board:

Red pepper jelly, green and purple grapes, ricotta cheese, pretzels, guacamole, variety of olives, artichoke hearts, prosciutto, cashews, cucumber, salami, mini sweet peppers, Mini Babybel cheese, sliced carrots, PopCorners, cherry tomatoes, pickles, dried mango, mini naan bread, and fresh mango salsa.

Here are a few items you can shop before starting your board:

See! I told you it wasn’t that hard! Give this a try and remember that there are no rules. Have fun and let us know if you have any questions.