Charcuterie Board Guide

It's no secret, my family loves charcuterie boards.

They are probably our most requested, fun meal.

I include everyone's favorite finger foods and have figured out how to do they pretty affordably.  I'm going to keep sharing them with you this year and hope you'll be inspired to make one for your family or friends.

Charcuterie Tips:

1. Shop at Aldi for your cheeses, crackers, jams, mustards, pickles and olives.  These items are so much cheaper there.  You can also get meat there, but I have yet to find an Aldi salami that we LOVE.

2. Use this meal as the perfect opportunity to use up all those little bits of food you have left in your fridge or pantry.  Finish off pretzel bags, the last clementine, one last apple, etc.  Let no food go to waste.

3. Don't feel the need to buy tons of meat and cheese.  I went with our favorite three meats and cheeses for these boards.  Fill you board with lots of good foods - meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, nuts, salty snacks and treats.  The more variety the better.

4. Our lazy susan giant round charcuterie board is our favorite.  The kids love that it spins which allows them to slowly spin the board to get what they want.  They are very pricey online.  Tip: Check the cutting board/kitchen section at TJ Maxx type stores.  I found this one for about $20 and it's HUGE.  It would have easily cost $50 online.  

5. If you buy the ingredients to make a charcuterie board, plan to have it for 2 dinners and maybe a lunch or two.  This will ensure that your ingredients do not go bad before you can use them.  We'll often have it for dinner one night, switch to a different dinner the next night and then back to charcuterie the next.  My crew is usually more excited to eat leftovers if they are not served two nights in a row.

We did charcuterie board dinners for New Year's Eve.  It was really fun!  We also wore our pjs and stayed in.  I'd highly recommend that for any dinner with your crew.  

Dinner #1: 3 meats, 3 cheeses and tons of other stuff.  I made a loaf of homemade Crusty Bread and we tried adding apricot preserves to the board.  So good!  We tried Havarti cheese and it got mixed reviews.  The family still loves extra sharp white cheddar and regular cheeses.

We love these metal condiment cups.  I use them for pickles, olives, mustard and jams or jellies.

Dinner #2: I served the rest of loaf of crusty bread, added pomegranates to the board, DOTS pretzels and a colorful mix of other things.  I also served it on a different board to reinforce the idea that it was a yummy, different meal than we had the first night.

We recently discovered these Old Wisconsin Snack Sticks.  We love the turkey sausage sticks.  The whole family likes them.  I've been putting them in the kid's lunchboxes.  We love them for snacks, lunches and for charcuterie boards.  They're around $4 a bag.  I've found them at Meijer and Walmart.

Would your family like a charcuterie board for dinner?

 

Here are a couple of Amazon affiliate links to our charcuterie favorites.  

These are the exact condiment cups we love and the exact wooden tray with a rim on it that I used for dinner #2.  We love both of them.  I love this Lodge dutch oven for making crusty bread.  It's wonderful for that and soups or stews.