Charcuterie boards are all the rage these days. It seems like everyone is jumping on the Charcuterie bandwagon lately. You can find these boards offered at local breweries, wine bars, and fine dining establishments. There are pictures of people showing off their homemade Charcuterie boards all over social media.
Although this seems like a new fad or trend, Charcuterie boards have been around for centuries. We can thank the French for the novel idea. The traditional boards focused mainly on meats, but the modern boards include meats, cheeses, bread, crackers, fruits, nuts, jams, and spreads. The modern Charcuterie boards can be a complete meal for two or an enticing appetizer tray for any function.
How We Got Hooked
During our trip to Boone earlier this year, my husband and I had an amazing Charcuterie board while dining out. It was so outstanding that we talked about how amazing it was for weeks. This past weekend we decided to get creative and make our own board.
Our board was a masterpiece if I do say so myself. The great thing about these boards is you can customize to your taste.
How to Make a Charcuterie Board
To make your own board at home, start by selecting the cracker and/or bread options. We chose pretzel chips, a box of assorted crackers, and some small pre-cut sourdough bread. We toasted a few pieces of the sourdough, so it was warm and toasty.
Next, select your meats. We used hard salami, turkey pepperoni, Prosciutto and deli-sliced smoked turkey breast.
Next, pick your cheeses. This is a good opportunity to try some new cheese varieties. We used smoked gouda and dill Havarti cheese. We also had some mozzarella, so we used that instead of the cheddar cheese.
Here are some local favorites, Mt Olive pickles. For this board, we used the Kosher baby dills and the mild okra (my favorite, my husband won’t touch them). If you are a fan of olives, be sure to include those on your board.
Then we added a ramekin of honey, stone ground mustard, and pineapple pepper jelly for the spreads. We also included some red grapes and almonds. If you like dried fruits, like cranberries or apricots, add them to the board as well.
As you can see, the options are many. Customizing your own at-home Charcuterie board can be a gratifying little food project. We had fun making this together for movie night. And let’s just say making this board and eating it together was far more entertaining than the movie I picked for movie night.
Here is the finished product. Not too bad for our first homemade Charcuterie board. We will definitely be making this again and trying different variations.
