The right stuff.
There is an art to learning how to assemble a fall charcuterie board. Here’s how to select and arrange the right cheeses, condiments, and decorative elements to wow your crowd this autumn.
The Recipe for Making the Best Fall Charcuterie Board
There are charcuterie boards, and there are the absolute best charcuterie boards. No charcuterie board is bad; after all, what’s not to love about a platter full of cheese, crackers, cured meat, and condiments?
But there are certain principles you can adhere to in order to take your fall charcuterie board from fine to fantastic.
- Choose the right charcuterie and cheeses. (There’s a method.)
- Choose the right complements, like jams, chutneys, nuts, crackers, bread, fruit, and the like.
- Add some decorative elements to give your fall charcuterie a sense of the season. Think pumpkins for fall and Thanksgiving and so on.
How to Choose Cheeses for an Autumn Charcuterie Board
When I was in pastry school at the C.I.A., we had an official cheese and charcuterie board class. There, we learned how to make sure that a fruit and cheese plate hit all the right marks.
Start with a selection of dairy sources, textures, and age. For example:
1. Vary Your Dairy.
Don’t just stick to cow’s milk cheeses. Have at least one cow’s milk cheese, but also throw in one goat’s milk cheese (chèvre), and/or a sheep’s milk cheese.
Cow’s milk cheese are incredibly diverse, so you won’t have any trouble finding some very good options. Popular cow’s milk cheeses include
- Brie
- Cheddar
- Most blue cheese (such as Gorgonzola)
- Gouda
- Gruyère
- Swiss
Popular goat cheeses include:
- Fresh chèvre
- Bucheron (a bloomy French cheese I love; it has been aged and develops a funky rind)
- Humboldt Fog, which has a vein of vegetable ash running through it that looks quite chic
Popular sheep’s milk cheeses include:
- Manchego, an aged Spanish cheese that tastes fantastic with quince paste (membrillo) or fig jam
- Pecorino Romano and Pecorino Toscano
- Roquefort
- Feta
2. Vary your textures and age of the cheeses
Now that you’ve offered a variety of dairy cheeses, make sure that you are hitting different flavor and texture notes. Have a wedge of ever-popular, soft and creamy brie? A crumbly aged gouda would be a wonderful counter. And both taste great with sliced apple or some honey.
Did you cube up some delicious aged cheddar? Add a hard wedge of aged Parmigiano-Reggiano? Add a soft, fresh goat cheese to the charcuterie board as a counterbalance.
Follow your intuition, but make sure that you have enough variety to keep things interesting.
How to Pair Charcuterie, Crackers, and Condiments for Your Fall Cheese Board
Keep these principles in mind: Salty, sweet, crunchy, soft. From there, you can fill in the blanks with a wide variety of crackers, nuts, fruit, and beyond.
- On the crunchy side: crisp crackers, nuts, fresh apple slices, cold grapes.
- On the sweet side: local honey, fig jam, fruit chutney, preserves, fresh fruit, dried apricots or dates
- Salty condiments: Your charcuterie, olives, some types of crackers, hard pretzels
- Soft-textured condiments for your fall charcuterie board: the aforementioned chutneys and jams, ripe pear
I like to keep my pairings within a range that naturally goes together. For example, I would not recommend putting crudité and hummus on the same platter as aged cheeses and honey, since they do not naturally “flow” together.
How to Arrange + Lay Out an Autumn Charcuterie Board
There is much to be said about a minimalist approach, with negative space between each element. But if you want to build up a full fall charcuterie board, here’s how to do it:
- Anchor your charcuterie board with your cheeses, cut as necessary, in different areas of your board. I would already have cheddar diced and Manchego sliced into triangles. Soft cheeses like chèvre and brie should be served in a log or wedge, respectively, with an appropriate knife or spreader. Crumbly cheese like an aged Parmigiano or aged gouda should have a pointy spade knife, if you have one.
- Add the charcuterie. Create height and interest by ribboning your prosciutto, or fold slices of aged salami in half or quarters instead of leaving it flat.
- Fill in with fruit, crackers, and condiments. No need to have a huge variety, but a couple different crackers or fruits will look more fun, and offer more variety for eaters.
- Add some tasteful decorative elements. For a good fall charcuterie board, I would add mini pumpkins (washed, please!), and sprigs of fresh, cold-weather herbs like sage, thyme, or rosemary.
What Wine Pairing Is Best for a Fall Cheese + Charcuterie Board?
Just as there is no one wine that goes with all food, there is no one wine that pairs best with cheese and charcuterie. Rather, certain wines pair best with certain cheeses.
Examples of best wine and cheese pairings:
- Sauvingnon Blanc + goat cheese
- Pinot Noir + brie
- Malbec + aged cheddar
- French chardonnay + Gruyère
- Port + Blue Cheese
- Brut (dry) sparkling wine + aged parmesan and bloomy, funky soft cheeses like brie or Epoisses
Overall, you will hit the most targets with a dry white wine with notes of fruit (as opposed to a lot of minerality), and light reds like Rioja and pinot noir.
How Long Can I Make My Charcuterie Board in Advance?
Your cheese and charcuterie board will keep for a few days in the fridge, loosely covered with plastic wrap. But do not add the crackers or bread until right before serving. Bread and crackers will get stale and soggy.
Also avoid slicing into oxidizing fruit like apple and pear in advance. They will turn brown.
Love a good cheese platter? You’ll also love:
How to Make a Gorgeous Fall Charcuterie Board
Ingredients
- A variety of cow's, goat's, and sheep's milk cheeses (see article for suggestions)
- A variety of cheeses of different textures, age, and color (see article for suggestions)
- Assorted charcuterie, such as prosciutto di Parma, salami, andouille, bresaola, Coppa, and so on
- Fresh fruit, such as crisp apples or grapes, ripe pears, and dried apricots
- Assorted nuts, such as pecans
- Sweet condiments, such as honey, chutney, fig jam, and preserves
- Decorative mini pumpkins (washed) and a few springs of fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme
- Assorted crackers and slices of fresh bread
Instructions
- Anchor your charcuterie board with your cheeses, cut as necessary, in different areas of your board. Cheddar shold be diced and Manchego sliced into triangles, for example. Soft cheeses like chèvre and brie should be served in a log or wedge, respectively, with an appropriate knife or spreader. Crumbly cheese like an aged Parmigiano or aged gouda should have a pointy spade knife, if you have one.
- Add the charcuterie. Create height and interest by ribboning your prosciutto, or fold slices of aged salami in half or quarters instead of leaving it flat.
- Fill in with fruit, crackers, and condiments. No need to have a huge variety, but a couple different crackers or fruits will look more fun, and offer more variety for eaters.
- Add some tasteful decorative elements. For a good fall charcuterie board, I would add mini pumpkins (washed, please!), and sprigs of fresh, cold-weather herbs like sage, thyme, or rosemary.
Love this! What size board do you recommend?
The nice part is that you can really adapt the size to whatever number of people you are serving. I sometimes do a standard dinner-plate size for 3 to 4 people (5 if you really squeeze everything together), or use my 9″ x 13″ cutting board for enough for around 10, give or take. Serving platters, cake plates, cutting boards…I say have fun. There’s something to be said for a little negative space, too, so don’t feel like things need to be too crowded. Enjoy!