Charcuterie Cheese Board

A charcuterie cheese board: the ultimate party trick?

When you want your party to be a legendary affair – the kind of experience that guests will remember with nostalgia and moist eyes – it's time to break out the charcuterie cheese board. Nothing elevates a party to best-time-ever status like a sprawl of the finest cheeses, cuts of meat, jams and dips, olives, nuts, and hearty bread. The beauty of an elegantly arranged charcuterie platter makes everyone at the party a little more attractive, talkative, and interesting – and makes you a genius party planner.

Here in Wisconsin, our award-winning cheese makes a charcuterie cheese board the ultimate party trick. Wisconsin cheeses pump up the flavor volume on gourmet cheese platters and charcuterie boards, turning a decent spread into a feast for the senses of mythical proportion.

Take a spin through our website to find the best cheese for charcuterie, or scroll down for tips on building the ultimate charcuterie board.

Charcuterie cheese board tips and tricks

To create a charcuterie board that will surprise and delight your guests, you'll want to choose ingredients that will offer an amazing collection of tastes, textures, and visual beauty. Here are a few suggestions for cheese, meat, and other finger foods that will make any charcuterie cheese board shine.

For cheese, choose at least four varieties with a range of textures. Start with hard and semi-hard cheeses like aged cheddar, parmesan, romano, colby, and gouda. Add some soft and semi-soft cheeses like feta, brie, havarti, muenster, and mascarpone. If your guests are a little more adventurous, you can include blue cheeses like gorgonzola or cheddar blue, along with a strong-smelling but amazing-tasting washed-rind cheese like brick.

For meats, you'll definitely want cured sausages like chorizo, salami, and soppressata. Then move on to whole-muscle cuts like prosciutto, coppa, and jamón ibérico. And finish off your selection with pates and spreads like chicken liver mousse and salmon rillettes.

After you've chosen the meat and cheese, think about other ingredients that will provide contrasting tastes and textures and make your cheeseboard sparkle visually.

• Bread: toasted crostini, hearty crackers, a baguette (let guests cut their own slices so the bread stays fresher)
• Jams: cherry preserves, fig jam, honey
• Fruit: dates, figs, sliced apples and pears, grapes and berries, sun-dried tomatoes, dried fruits
• Nuts: pine nuts, macadamia nuts, marcona almonds, candied pecans, pistachios
• Dips and spreads: olive tapenade, roasted red pepper dip, hummus, fig spread
• Mustards: whole-grain mustard or pecan-honey mustard
• Vegetables: olives, pickles, artichokes, cornichons, sweet cherry red peppers

Wisconsin: where the best charcuterie cheese boards are born

The gentle rolling hills and fertile farmland of Wisconsin is where the world's best charcuterie cheese boards are born. Or rather, it's where the cheese that makes the best charcuterie cheese boards originates. That's because Wisconsin is home to the tastiest, highest-quality, most award-winning cheese in the universe.

We've been obsessively making the world's finest cheese for 180 years. Today, our 1200 cheesemakers produce one-quarter of the cheese made in the US, and nearly half of the nation's specialty, artisan cheese. Even more importantly, cheese made in Wisconsin is mighty fine stuff, as our 5500+ cheese awards will tell you. That's what happens when a whole state is dedicated to doing one thing better than anywhere else.

So, next time you're choosing cheese for a charcuterie board, look for the Proudly Wisconsin Cheese badge on the label. Then look for the gratifying smiles of your guests as they dig into the best charcuterie cheese board they've ever seen or tasted.