Holiday Charcuterie Board

At a Glance 

This holiday charcuterie board is a festive grazing platter containing a selection of cured meats, soft cheeses, hard cheeses, and condiments found at Farm Boy. It’s easy to put together for sharing and can be prepared ahead of time. You can adjust this holiday charcuterie board depending on your preference and number of guests. 

Holiday Charcuterie Board 

Get ready to impress with this easy holiday charcuterie board that’s perfect for entertaining. Loaded with savoury cheeses, cured meats, and more, this simple recipe is inspired by holiday flavours. At Farm Boy, one of the most important aspects of providing our customers with a fun, fresh-market experience is offering curated products we think you’ll love. This charcuterie board features hand-selected hard and soft cheeses and delicious cured meats. We’ve also added extra holiday flair with the inclusion of seasonally inspired condiments. 

You can customize your charcuterie board to suit your and your guests’ taste buds. (We also have a recipe for a Italian charcuterie board.) At Farm Boy, we’re proud to offer our customers a diverse range of local, Canadian, and international items selected just for you. 

Holiday Charcuterie Board Ingredients  

When constructing your charcuterie board, you want to have ingredients that offer a medley of different textures and flavours. Three to four cheeses and two to three meats are the rule of thumb for a charcuterie board, but, depending on your guest list, you’ll want to expand that number. For this holiday charcuterie board, we want to stick to items that have flavours and seasonings that represent the winter season. You can always opt for your own preferred meats and cheeses, like blue cheese, goat cheese (our Cranberry Cinnamon Goat Cheese is seasonally appropriate) or whatever you like best. 

Cheeses 

Triple Cream Brie: Velvety, creamy, and smooth, our buttery triple cream Brie is a must-have. This soft cheese has the flavour of fresh milk with a slightly tangy finish. For easiest serving, we recommend slicing this wheel into wedges for your guests to grab. (For a more holiday-appropriate look, you can use a large cookie cutter to carve this wheel into a Christmas tree, snowflake, or whatever seasonal shape you like best! Use a cookie cutter that allows the perimeter of the wheel to remain intact, then fill the empty space with jam, compote, or nuts.) 

Farmstead Gruyère: This harder cheese has a rich, creamy interior and distinctly salty flavour. It melts on the tongue and is a wonderful accompaniment to fresh fruits. Made in St. Marys, Ontario and naturally aged for 12-18 months, this Swiss-style cheese should be cut into wedges for easier serving. 

Gourmet Cheese Ball: A crowd-pleaser (and Fan Faves winner), our Gourmet Cheese Balls are made by us in-store. Crafted with velvety cream cheese and savoury ingredients, you can pick a flavour according to your palate. For this holiday-inspired grazing board, we like our Cranberry Pecan flavour, made with chopped pecans, dried cranberries, and chives. 

English Cheddar: Cheddar cheese is a crowd-pleaser and a must-have for your holiday charcuterie board. One of our British Isles cheeses, our English Cheddar is handcrafted with grass-fed cow’s milk using traditional methods. It’s rich and tangy with a smooth, firm texture, making it the ideal foil for stronger, more assertive cured meats. 

Meats 

Hot Genoa Salami: Both spicy and tangy, our imported hot Genoa salami provides a dose of bold flavour to your grazing board. Seasoned with red chili peppers, paprika, and black pepper, it brings welcome sharpness to creamy cheeses and provides a fiery backdrop for sweet fruits. (Not into spicy, we also have a regular Genoa Salami as well.) 

Fuet Bites: Fuet is a thin, dry-cured pork sausage with a slightly smoky flavour. These fuet bites are gluten-free and imported from Spain. Scatter them throughout your holiday charcuterie board for an eye-catching, flavourful addition. 

Prosciutto: Our dry-cured, imported prosciutto will melt in your mouth thanks to its delicious flavour and delicate texture. Our packaged prosciutto is pre-sliced so you can easily arrange it on your holiday charcuterie board. 

Coppa: Distinctively marbled for a full, rich flavour, our imported Italian coppa is pre-sliced to highlight its delicate texture and melt-in-your-mouth quality. Flavoured with white wine, garlic, and pepper, it pairs well with creamy cheeses and fruits. 

Other Charcuterie Board Additions 

Olives: For this holiday charcuterie board, we’ve opted for red pepper stuffed green olives. Naturally, with their red and green colour scheme, they fit into this board perfectly! However, we have a wide variety of olives in all Farm Boy stores. Our Italian Castelvetrano olives are rich, mild, and buttery—an excellent choice for those who don’t like their olives to be too briny. On the other hand, our Greek garlic-stuffed green olives are more pungent and savoury. Not into olives? Other marinated items, like artichoke hearts or roasted red peppers, are popular inclusions in charcuterie. 

Fruit: Fresh and dried fruits are perfect when paired with our selection of meats and cheeses. They offer a lift for the palate as well as the eyes. Fresh grapes always go wonderfully with both soft and hard cheeses, while clementines are in season and offer a bright, citrus note. Tart dried cranberries are both festive and punchy. These are classic choices that give your taste buds a break from all those rich, savoury, and salty cheeses and cured meats. You could also offer your guests a fruit jam, like fig jam, for bonus sweetness. 

Nuts: Hearty and flavourful, roasted nuts are a delicious item to add to your charcuterie board. We chose roasted salted almonds because they’re a safe choice that goes over well with most guests. You could also add our Maple Dry Roasted Almonds to your board for an extra pop of festive sweetness. 

Breads/Crackers: An array of crackers and breads provides your guests with a vehicle to enjoy everything you’ve laid out on your charcuterie board. So as not to compete with the flavours of your cheeses and cured meats, you’ll want to choose crackers and breads with a more neutral flavour. Our baguette crisps are made from thinly sliced baguette, seasoned, and double-baked for a satisfying crunch. For this charcuterie board, we recommend simple flavours like Eight Grain or Olive Oil & Sea Salt.  

Rosemary: Fresh sprigs of rosemary provide an herbaceous aroma and extra elegance to this holiday grazing board. Their pine-like flavour, scent, and appearance earn extra holiday points, too! 

How To Assemble a Charcuterie Board 

Since meats and cheeses are the stars of this holiday charcuterie board, we’ll want to place them on our serving tray or platter first. For easy accessibility among your guests, we recommend pre-slicing your cheeses. (Our cured meats already come pre-sliced for your convenience!) You can fan out your meats and cheeses across your board, or, if you’d like a more artistic presentation, you can fold, roll, or form your cured meats into little flowers.  

Next, any jams or spreads—like our Cranberry, Port, and Pecan Compote—should be placed into small bowls and set among the meats and cheeses on your charcuterie board. If you’re using artichoke hearts or roasted red peppers, we recommend placing these into small bowls too, so that they don’t leak across the rest of your spread and taint the other flavours. 

Then, nestle your fruits, nuts, and olives in among any gaps on your charcuterie board. If you have room, you can place your selected crackers and crostini directly on the board as well. If not, they can always be kept on the side for guests to pick and choose. 

You can assemble your charcuterie board a couple of hours ahead of time and keep it in the fridge to stay at a safe temperature. We recommend keeping your charcuterie board chilled until serving time. This ensures that the meats and cheeses stay fresh and tasty for your party guests!

More Holiday Recipes from Farm Boy! 

Looking for more holiday recipes? Check out any of the dishes below! 

Glazed Holiday Tofu Roast 

Holiday Turkey, Brie, and Cranberry Melt 

Gingerbread Swiss Roll Trifle 

Festive Quinoa Pilaf 

Hasselback Roasted Butternut Squash 

Sticky Ginger Cakes with Cranberry and Salted Caramel 

Eggnog French Toast 

Cheesy Stuffed Mushrooms 

Gingerbread Gelato Milkshakes 

Mini Toads in a Hole with Jammy Balsamic Onion 

Classic Eggnog