How to Build an Epic Cheese Board for any Occasion

Cheese boards are incredibly versatile and can be utilized for pretty much any occasion - an appetizer for your next dinner party (or the main course!), as a gorgeous addition to brunch with your favorite ladies, or added to a meal that just needs an extra something! Cheese boards are both beautiful and delicious, and can make any meal or occasion classy with zero cooking skills required.

You can get as fancy or as simple as you want to with building cheese boards. You can spend $20 or a whole lot more depending on what you want to do. I can usually get everything I need at Kroger or Whole Foods!

I always start by thinking about what kind of occasion I’m preparing for. Is it a small get-together or a larger gathering? Is this a snack or an appetizer, a side dish, or the main meal? What season is it? What time of day is it? (Brunch cheese boards, anybody?!?) Are there any dairy-free people in your party? Are there any nut allergies? All of these things go into deciding what to include in your cheese board. The list below is my go-to list when I’m trying to decide what to include with my next cheese board. There are so many more options than are listed, but these are my personal favorites and a good starting point for building cheese boards for any given occasion.

My go-to list when choosing ingredients for cheese boards:

Disclaimer: You can choose as many or as little ingredients as you’d like. These are just what I generally aim for when building cheese boards! Obviously the quantity and variety of ingredients you choose will largely be determined by the amount of people you’re planning on feeding and whether it’s going to be an appetizer or the main course. These are just my own personal favorites - feel free to experiment and use your own favorite ingredients! Pro-tip: A lot of grocery stores have little baskets of smaller cuts of cheese between $3-5 in their cheese sections so you can try a wider variety to figure out what cheeses you love!

How to Build a Cheese Board:

1 ) Start with your cheeses.

When assembling a cheese board, I usually start with the cheese first. I usually slice some of each cheese, then leave the rest for people to slice themselves, or put the rest back in the fridge. This depends entirely on the crowd and how much cheese I think we’ll get through! If I know we’ll eat it all, I just go ahead and slice it all. (The only cheese I won’t slice ahead of time is brie - it’s supposed to be served at room temperature, and because it’s such a soft cheese it will just melt together again anyway.) I position the cheese around the board, and then build everything else from there.

2 ) Add charcuterie.

Next I put out the charcuterie, again positioning and scattering it around the board or tray. Sometimes I roll them, other times I fold them once or twice, sometimes I just lay them out flat. You can get as creative with this as you’d like! I don’t have it down to a science - I just play around with it until I like how it looks.

Keep in mind that the charcuterie is usually the first thing to go, so you might want to double up on the meats! I constantly underestimate the amount of charcuterie we’ll eat.

3 ) Add bread and/or crackers.

I usually add any bread or crackers next, squeezing them in between the cheese and meats here and there. If you have a loaf of bread or baguette, you can cut some of it into slices and leave the rest for people to cut themselves if they want more. This will keep the bread from drying out if you’ll be lingering for a while. My new personal favorite bread to include is challah! Consider including a little ramekin of butter if you are including bread and aren’t pairing it with brie!

4 ) Fill in with fruit, veggies, nuts and olives.

After I’ve gotten the cheese, charcuterie, and carbs how I want them, I just fill in the rest of the board with the remaining ingredients. You can build it as minimal or as full as you want to! I’m partial to really full cheese boards, but every occasion is different. Fill in the rest of the spaces with fruits, veggies, nuts and olives. You can pile everything as high as you want, or put things like nuts or berries in little bowls if you’d prefer.

Cheese boards for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

#Brunch

I LOVE incorporating cheese boards into brunch spreads. It’s also the perfect way to get rid of any leftover cheese, charcuterie, etc. from hosting the night before or earlier in the week! Brie is a great soft cheese for brunch - serve it at room temp, paired with a French baguette (bonus points if you warm it up in the oven) and some blueberry jam! This is also a great time to pile on the fruit! Grapes, berries - whatever you have on hand is great! Fry up some eggs and bacon, make some coffee, pop the bubbles, and you’re good to go!

The spread below is from one of our annual New Years Eve sleepovers. Think bougie dinners while wearing your favorite soft clothes, then coffee and brunch the next day with all of the leftovers. Steak, sweet potato hash, eggs, and bacon paired with soft cheeses, fruit and baguettes? Game over.

Lunch

I have a soft spot for extravagant lunches. My time in Italy back in 2013 ruined me forever in the best way possible. That delightful mid-afternoon carb coma, lingering around the table for hours… There’s just something so luxurious about taking the time to slow down over a gorgeous meal in the middle of the day. Even better if you’re able to pair it with a glass of wine! Obviously you don’t want to have to immediately take a nap afterwards, so I love pairing cheese boards with this deliciously light, but hearty salad to balance out all the cheese and charcuterie, or this gorgeous Italian-inspired arugula and asparagus salad!

Dinner

I love throwing extravagant dinner parties with cheese and charcuterie boards. I sometimes use them as the main course, and I often use them as an appetizer to mitigate inevitable munchies before dinner. The thing to keep in mind when serving cheese boards as the main course is that you’ll want to make sure to include plenty of other filling ingredients like bread, crackers, veggies and hummus, etc.

One of my favorite things to include with my cheese boards is prosciutto and melon. It’s a pairing I discovered and fell in love with in Italy, and it takes me back every time. All you have to do is cut cantaloupe into small slices and wrap them with strips of prosciutto. This salty, sweet, juicy combo is delightful!