Simple and Festive Halloween Charcuterie Board
The spookiest time of year calls for a spooktacular food spread. Make a Halloween Charcuterie Board to help make your Halloween fun, but not too scary.
It’s hard to top a charcuterie board for celebrating special days. While they feel extra fancy, cheese boards only take a few minutes to come together, and there is something on the board that everyone in the family will like! And with a few special Halloween extras, you can take your charcuterie board to char-BOO-terie board in just a few minutes.
Why should I make a Halloween charcuterie board?
This cheese board is the perfect snack for pre-trick-or-treating. It’s easy to munch on while everyone is busy getting their costumes on or enjoying a Halloween party. It provides some much-appreciated substantial food before the candy onslaught begins. And, maybe best of all, it comes together in only about 10 minutes—so you can enjoy your spooky scary holiday with the fam!
How much food do I need?
This can be a little tough to estimate and depends on how much other food, if any, will be available. Are you serving your charcuterie board as an appetizer or to take the place of a meal? Here are some good rules of thumb:
- For an appetizer: One standard-size wedge/piece (4-6 ounces each) of cheese or meat per three people served.
- For a main: One standard-size wedge/piece (4-6 ounces each) of cheese or meat per two people served.
But if you want a great mix of textures and flavors, you may need more than this. When in doubt, we err on the side of more meat and cheese.
How do I make an easy Halloween charcuterie board?
Step 1: Grab your board.
Any large flat surface will work: a big cutting board, a serving platter, or even a baking sheet can do the trick! For Halloween, a large slate board is our favorite—its dark color can add to the spooky festive feel.
Step 2: Place the cheeses.
Space the cheeses evenly throughout the board. You’ll want to choose a wide variety of textures, flavors, and colors to add visual and flavor interest. We recommend at least:
- One soft cheese, like Brie or goat cheese
- One hard cheese, like Parmesan, gruyere, or cheddar
- One crumbly cheese, such as blue cheese or feta
If you’re at a higher-end grocery store with a cheese counter, look for a bargain bin. Many will have a basket of cheese ends that were too small for people to order, and these can be the perfect size for a cheese board (and will cost considerably less). It’s a great way to get a lot of variety and to try something new!
Protip: To slice or not to slice?
If you’re short on time (or serving mostly adults), you can get away with not pre-slicing your cheese and just putting cheese knives out with the board. If you are serving a bunch of little goblins, you might want to pre-cut your cheese so little hands can quickly grab their snack without having to ask an adult to help with the knife.
Step 3: Add any big decorations.
If there are any large decorations you want to incorporate (like that skeleton hand holding the bowl of olives), put them down now so you don’t run out of space for them!
Step 4: Pile the meats around the cheeses.
We recommend at least two meats. At least one should be cured, such as salami, prosciutto, or pepperoni. The second can be another cured meat, or you can include something uncured, such as ham.
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Step 5: Add the salty items.
Using the cheese wedges as focal points, arrange the nuts, olives, and other savory items around the cheeses and meats. For items that tend to roll away like olives, use small bowls to keep them corralled.
Some of our favorite salty items for a Halloween charcuterie board include: stuffed olives (pimento-stuffed green olives are particularly spooky), marinated artichoke hearts, pickles, and Marcona almonds are all good choices.
Step 6: Fill in with sweet things.
Nestle fruits, veggies, and sweets in among the savory items. We wanted to incorporate some orange color reminiscent of Halloween pumpkins, so dried apricots and dried mango were our sweet treats of choice. We also love to include chocolate-covered almonds, chocolate squares, yogurt-covered raisins, or small cookies.
Protip: What fruits and vegetables?
We stuck with dark or red fruits for our Halloween board to add to the spooky vibe: blackberries, raspberries, grapes, figs, pomegranate arils, persimmon slices, cherries, and strawberries are great. For vegetables, cherry tomatoes, sliced bell pepper, or blanched vegetables all work.
Step 7: Add piles of crackers.
Rice crackers, water crackers, cheese crisps, bagel chips, crunchy breadsticks, and pita chips are all favorites. If you didn’t leave room for these, you can serve them in a separate bowl or basket off to the side.
Step 8: Add condiments.
Condiments are a fun addition to a charcuterie board and a great way to use up the jams and mustards that you’ve canned or have been gifted. We love using honey, jams, grainy mustard, hot sauce, or other dips.
Step 9: Fill in empty spaces and garnish.
Fill in any empty spots with grapes or cherry tomatoes, or incorporate more Halloween decorations for a festive board. To stick with the Halloween theme, we chose some spooky decorations for garnish. We used bloodshot candy eyes (available in the Halloween baking aisle at your supermarket), mini pumpkins, and small plastic skulls. Small plastic spiders would also be a great addition (just make sure everyone knows what is and what isn’t edible).
If we wanted to make this less “scary” for younger kids, we would probably swap out the skulls and spiders for gummy worms and candy corn.
Protip: Pick a color scheme.
For a cohesive-looking board, it helps to keep color in mind when you are picking out your ingredients: do you want to go spooky with dark red, dark purple, and black? Or bright and fun with oranges and yellows?
Can you prep a charcuterie board ahead of time?
Assembling a Halloween cheese board should only take a few minutes, but if you want to do some prep in advance, you totally can. Just wait to put on crunchy items like crackers and nuts until right before serving so they stay as crisp as possible. You can assemble the rest of the charcuterie board up to a day in advance, though. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until serving.
Halloween Charcuterie Board
Equipment
- Cheese board (can use a [cheese board], cutting board, serving platter, tray, or cookie sheet)
- [Cheese knives]
- Spooky holiday themed decorations (plastic spiders, candy eyeballs, skeleton hands, mini plastic skulls, mini pumpkins, etc.)
Materials
- Various cheeses get a mix of flavors, textures, shapes, and colors
- Salty items meats, nuts, olives, etc.
- Sweet items fruit, dried fruit, chocolate, etc.
- Crunchy items crackers, pita chips, breadsticks, etc.
- Condiments honey, mustards, chutney, etc.
- Space-filling items grapes, cherry tomatoes, cherries
Instructions
- Space the cheeses evenly across the surface of your board.
- Place any large decorative pieces (like the skeleton hand holding the olive bowl) to make sure you have enough room for them.
- Pile your salty items like meats, nuts, and olives around the cheeses. Use small bowls for things that want to roll away!
- Nestle sweet items like fruits and candies in among the savory items.
- Add piles of crackers, or serve them in a separate bowl or basket off to the side.
- Nestle in small jars or bowls of condiments such as jams and mustards.
- Fill in any empty spaces with grapes, cherries, cherry tomatoes, or Halloween decorations like small plastic skulls or spiders.
Notes
- If serving as an appetizer, we recommend one standard-size wedge/piece (4-6 ounces each) of cheese or meat per three people served.
- If serving as a main, we recommend one standard-size wedge/piece (4-6 ounces each) of cheese or meat per two people served.
- If you're short on time (or serving mostly adults), you can get away with not pre-slicing your cheese. Instead, we put the uncut pieces of cheese on the tray with cheese knives so that guests can slice to whatever thickness they'd like.
- If you are serving a bunch of little goblins, you might want to pre-slice or pre-cube your cheese so little hands can quickly grab their snack without having to ask an adult to help with the knife.
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