Grazing Board

The grazing board: Planning the perfect party

A beautiful and scrumptious grazing board is the ultimate party trick. Packed with a wide selection of cheese, charcuterie, and crudités, a grazing board provides something for everyone at the party while letting the hosts off the hook for serving food – guests can simply help themselves to their favorite bites and spreads.

And then there's the cheese. While prosciutto slices, fig crisps, and candied pecans are delicious, nothing quite compares to the extraordinary taste and texture of cheese. When you offer guests a beautiful selection of tangy cheddar, crumbly aged gouda, marbled bluejack, and decadent burrata, guests will inevitably remember your gathering in reverent, hallowed tones.

Wisconsin Cheese: An essential ingredient for every grazing board

Wisconsin cheesemakers have won more awards than any other state or country, so it makes sense that cheese is the center of every Wisconsin grazing board. And with over 600 varieties, styles, and types of cheese made by our very own cheesemakers, we've got plenty of cheese to choose from. Some of our favorites include:

• Marieke® Golden – a gouda parmesan cheese with a buttery texture, sweet aroma, and a pleasant nuttiness.
• Luna cheese from Hill Valley Dairy – a fusion of gouda and Alpine-style cheese with salty, sweet, creamy, earthy flavors – just like the moon.
• The Blue Jay cheese – a decadent triple crème blue cheese from Deer Creek Cheese.
• Widmer's Butterkäse – a rich, butterkäse-style cheese from Widmer's Cheese Cellars.
• Dill Havarti cheese from Roth Cheese – a creamy delicacy laced with dill flavors for a subtle finish.

How to build a grazing board

Here are a few tips for building a stunning grazing board.

• Choose a surface. Wooden cutting boards or serving trays are the standard base for a grazing board, but there are plenty of other options. Marble slabs, slate trays, or ceramic platters are all possibilities. You can even create a larger grazing board on butcher paper or a collection of mismatched plates.
• Build up and out. A cheese board with a bit of height is more visually interesting than one that's laid out flat. Start with a centerpiece or two – bottles of wine, a vase of flowers, bowls of fruit – and build your board around them. Create a second level with small bowls, jars, and ramekins for dips and spreads. Then place your cheeses and meats with an eye to mixing colors, textures, and shapes. Finally, fill in any still-empty space with the remaining ingredients.
• Make it easy. You want your guests to enjoy the food, not struggle with the logistics. Slice the harder cheeses ahead of time and place softer cheeses near the edge where they are easier to cut. Give each cheese its own knife to avoid getting blue cheese on the burrata. Add labels to the cheeses and any unusual ingredients so that guests know what they're munching on.
• Let the cheese warm up. Be sure to take the cheese out of the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving. Bringing it to room temperature will allow the flavors to blossom.

Pairing taste and texture on a grazing board

When choosing cheese, charcuterie, and other ingredients for a grazing board, variety is the key. Be sure to mix the sweeter tastes of fruit preserves, fig jam, honey, and dried fruit with the more savory tastes of cheese and charcuterie.

Cheese

Selecting 3 – 5 cheeses from the following categories will give your guests a nice variety to choose from.

• Firm cheese: parmesan, asiago, aged gouda
• Semi-firm cheese: cheddar, gruyere, colby, manchego
• Semi-soft cheese: havarti, muenster, butterkäse
• Soft cheese: burrata, mascarpone, brie
• Strong-tasting cheese: blue cheese, brick

Charcuterie

• Cured sausages: salami, soppressata, chorizo
• Whole-muscle cuts: jamón ibérico, prosciutto, coppa
• Patés: chicken liver mousse, pork rillettes, truffle mousse pate

Other ingredients

• Bread: sliced baguette, crostini, wafer crisps, hearty crackers
• Spreads: fig jam, fruit preserves, honey, chutneys, olive tapenade, hummus
• Vegetables: pickles, sweet cherry red peppers, cornichons, artichokes
• Mustards: whole grain mustard, smoky onion mustard, pecan honey mustard
• Nuts: marcona almonds, candied pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts
• Fruit: olives, figs, dates, sun-dried tomatoes, dried fruits, fresh berries, grapes, slices of apples and pears