Holiday Charcuterie Board
The weather is turning crisp and the leaves are changing into their fall colors—this means that the holidays are right around the corner!
Sometimes we get so focused on making very fancy and labor-intensive appetizers that we forget there are equally impressive and simple pre-meal munchies that look impressive on the dinner table. This holiday charcuterie board looks gorgeous as a centerpiece, packed with organic smoked meats, grass-fed hard and soft cheeses, fresh and dried organic fruit and nuts, and low carb cauliflower crackers.
Layout this spread and watch guests go to town while you prepare the main dinner—it really takes a load off your shoulders to know that you don’t have to go overboard in terms of work when it comes to creating beautiful and appreciated appetizers.
We recommend a hard cheese, a medium cheese, and a soft cheese—but please spring for organic and grass-fed which are healthier for you and won’t accidentally give you a dose of antibiotics. We’ll give you a few choices to choose from with each. You can find cauliflower or other low carb crackers gluten-free crackers in many of the supermarkets today if you miss that crunch.
Ingredients
- Pick 3 (or more) Organic nitrate-free smoked ham, smoked turkey, prosciutto, capocollo, salami, pepperoni for a total of 1 – 1.5 lbs
- Pick 2 (or more) toasted whole organic walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, cashews, hickory nuts, or hazelnuts for a total of 1 cup
- ½ cup each organic green and black olives
- Pick 1 Hard Aged Grass Fed Organic Cheese: Pecorino Romano, Asiago, Parmesan, Manchego
- Pick 1 Medium Grass-Fed Organic Cheese: Gouda, Cheddar, Gorgonzola, Havarti, Muenster, Swiss, Colby Jack, Pepper Jack, Gruyere
- Pick 1 Soft Grass-Fed Organic Cheese: Goat, Brie, Mozzarella, Camembert, Burrata
- Organic Apple Slices
- Organic Pear Slices
- Organic Grape bunches
- Pick 1: Organic no sugar added dried apricots, mango, raisins, pineapple, cranberries, blueberries, cherries
- 1 bag organic cauliflower crackers
Directions
- When designing and executing a charcuterie board, the way to make it visually appealing is by placing the designated cheeses (pre-sliced except for burrata, if using) around the board.
- Nestle portions of the meat around the board so that guests don’t have to travel too far to sample all the different types.
- Place olives and nuts in small shallow bowls near the cheeses. Neighbor the bowls with fresh fruit. For the fresh fruit, slicing them thin and then fanning them out makes it visually interesting.
- Place small handfuls of dried fruit in between the empty spaces along with the cauliflower crackers.
- For an even more holiday feel, cut sprigs of holly, rosemary, or thyme and frame them near the cheeses.