Christmas Charcuterie Board Ideas for Your Holiday Party
This festive wreath of fresh herbs and edibles is a delicious example of very merry charcuterie board ideas for your Christmas holiday party!
Cost: varies
Equipment
- large cutting board or flat platter
- bamboo skewers
- cheese forks, spreaders, and spoons
Ingredients
for the wreath base, use any combination of
- rosemary fresh branches
- thyme fresh sprigs
- basil fresh sprigs and loose leaves
for the skewers, use any combination of
- salami
- prosciutto
- cherry tomatoes
- roasted sweet peppers
- seedless red grapes
- seedless green grapes
- champagne grapes
- black olives
- green olives
- dried fruits apricots, cherries, pear slices
- cheese chunked; mozzarella balls, parmesan, or cheddar cheese
for filling empty spaces, use any combination of
- fruit figs, apple, quince, or berries
- nuts salted, candied, or smoked
- finger sandwiches
for sweet accompaniments, use any combination of
- honey
- honeycomb
- quince paste
- fig jam
- Christmas cookies
- petit fours
- pieces of chocolate
for serving, use any combination of
- savory crackers
- water crackers
- pita chips
- naan
- bread sliced and grilled or toasted
- lavosh
- melba rounds
Instructions
Select A Base
- Use what you have on hand; think rustic large cutting board, large flat surface platter, or even a plate charger. I'm using a wood cutting board along with a flat cake platter. I place the platter atop the wooden board slightly askew so that the handle and side of the board acts as a space for crackers, bread, nuts, and berries.
Start With the Herbs and Make a Circle
- Begin at the edges of your base and place a rosemary branch at the 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 9 o'clock. Divide the remaining herb stems and leaves into four equal piles and use one pile to fill in each of the four quads you've defined.
Building Individual Skewers to Adorn the Wreath
- Begin by threading salami onto bamboo skewers along with cherry tomatoes and some harder cheeses like parmesan or pepper jack cheese to secure the skewer. I "fold" the salami into quadrants to sort of mimic a rosette. Build all of your skewers to match for uniformity around the wreath. If you choose to make more than one skewer pattern, ensure you make multiples.
Build the Wreath
- Just like you did with placing a rosemary branch at the 12, 3, 6, and 9, so too place a single skewer at the 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, and the 10:30. Then, fill in from there based on how many skewers you assembled and what lays best where.
- Once the skewers have all been placed, go back in and fill in the gaps and empty spaces with grapes, nuts, individual chunks of cheese, halved fresh figs, pieces of chocolate or cookies or petit fours...whatever makes sense.
- It's also at this point that I begin to create layers of meat and cheese and crackers and fruits on the outside of the wreath. The outside of the wreath area is a great space and a great way to ensure all of what you purchased makes it onto a surface from which to serve.
Add Serving Utensils to Your Board
- For the sake of keeping hands clean and food otherwise untouched, be sure to provide cheese forks, cheese knives, a wide spoons for the nuts.
- If you are offering honey or pepper jelly or any spreads, make sure to then also provide spoons, spreaders, and the like for dispensing them neatly. Small cracker tongs are somewhat specialized and not everybody owns a pair, but if you do, now's the time to bust them out.
Notes
Uniformly chunk the cheeses, sausages, and cured meats up to 24 hours in advance. Place into an airtight container and refrigerate.
Fruit should be sliced/halved right before serving or it may brown and fade.
Grapes may be removed from the main vine up to 24 hours in advance with a pair of kitchen scissors neatly to where they are a tiny cluster.
Nuts, berries, cheese logs, pitas, crackers, bread...all of this can be opened and added just before serving.