Which Cracker Goes With Which Cheese

By Emily Patrikakos, Brand Executive at The Gourmet Pantry.

Match the cracker to the cheese by strength, not by looks. Plain water crackers carry soft, delicate cheeses without arguing with them. Seed crisps studded with fruit and nuts stand up to blue and washed rind. Flatbread and pita handle hard cheddar and anything you want to scoop. If you are only buying one box, buy plain.

The cracker is the plate, not the meal

A cracker has one job: hold the cheese up and add a little salt and crunch on the way through. It goes wrong in exactly two directions. Too loud, and you taste rosemary and parmesan instead of the goat's curd you paid for. Too flimsy, and a cold wedge of cheddar snaps it in half over the carpet.

We range crackers because they go into the cheese and grazing hampers we hand-pack in Geelong, so we spend a good part of the year tasting them against cheese. The short version of what we have learned: most people buy one box of one style, and two boxes of two styles makes a visibly better board for about four dollars more. Our cracker range runs from about $2.95 to $7.95 a box, less than the cheapest wedge on the table.

The five cracker styles, and what each one is for

Water crackers and crackerthins: the default

Thin, pale, barely salted, no flavour of their own. That neutrality is the point. VPC Crackerthins Plain at $3.49 is the box to buy if you are buying one: it carries brie, triple cream, a fresh curd and a runny washed rind, and it disappears under the cheese rather than competing with it.

The catch is structure. A thin water cracker snaps under cheese straight from the fridge, so bring the cheese out 30 to 45 minutes before people arrive. For hard cheese, step up to the cracked black pepper Crackerthins at the same price, where the pepper gives an aged cheddar something to push against.

Rustic mini artisan crackers: the all-rounder

Thicker, handcrafted, with real chew. Mini Artisan Crackers with Sea Salt at $4.95 are the compromise box: sturdy enough to take a slab of hard cheese, quiet enough to sit under a brie. If you are feeding a mixed board and want to think about this once only, this is the one. La Panzanella Mini Croccantini at $6.50 are the Italian version of the same idea, crisp and light with a touch of coarse sea salt, and better than most at handling tapenade and charcuterie as well as cheese.

Seed crisps: the ones that do half the work

Dense, thin-sliced and packed with fruit and nuts, seed crisps are the style that changed cheese boards in this country. All six flavours we range are $6.95 for 150g: fig and olive, cranberry and hazelnut, quince and almond, rosemary raisin and pecan, truffle and honey, and kalamata olive with sun-dried tomato.

The practical argument for them: a seed crisp is the cracker and the accompaniment in one slice, so you can skip the paste, the muscatels and the extra bowl. A quince and almond crisp under a blue is the quince-paste-and-nuts combination already assembled, which is worth knowing when you are building a board on the 24th of December and the bench has run out of room.

Native artisan crackers: the ones people pick up and read

The wattleseed and fig and Kakadu plum and basil crackers from Valley Produce Company are $7.69 for 100g and the most talked-about box on any board we send out. Nutty wattleseed sits beautifully against a sharp cheddar, and the tart Kakadu plum cuts through something creamy. If you are hosting visitors from overseas, this is the box that starts a conversation.

Flatbread, pita and bagel toast: for scooping, not for delicate cheese

Wide, rigid and built to be loaded. VPC Artisan Flatbread at $4.95 comes in six flavours including beetroot, carrot, kale and sea salt with sesame. The rosemary, parmesan and garlic pita at $6.95 is oven baked in Australia, a dip cracker first and a cheese cracker second. Bagel toast at $5.95 is the sturdiest thing here, which makes it right for a soft blue you are spreading rather than slicing. Keep all three away from the soft whites: a garlic pita under a delicate brie is a waste of the brie.

Cheese by cheese: what to put underneath

Work from the cheese out. The stronger the cheese, the more the cracker can bring; the more delicate the cheese, the quieter the cracker has to be.

Brie, camembert and other soft whites

Plain, thin, unflavoured. A water cracker or a sea salt artisan cracker lets the rind and the cream do the work. The one upgrade worth making is a fig and olive seed crisp, sweet and salty against the fat. Skip anything with garlic, herbs or truffle.

Blue cheese

Blue wants sweetness, and something solid to stand on, because half of it goes onto the cracker as a smear rather than a slice. Cranberry and hazelnut crisps are the standard answer and a good one. To keep the cracker plain instead, put a VPC Fruit Pyramid in fig and almond at $6.95 beside it and let the fruit paste do the sweetening.

Aged cheddar and hard cheese

Structure first. A thin water cracker snaps under a properly cut slice of two-year cheddar, so use the rustic mini artisan crackers, the native wattleseed and fig, or the cracked black pepper Crackerthins. Salt and pepper flatter a hard cheese; sweetness starts to feel like dessert.

Washed rind and the loud ones

Nothing sweet, nothing herbed, nothing that falls apart. These cheeses arrive with all the flavour anyone needs, so give them a plain sturdy base: bagel toast, plain artisan crackers or a sea salt flatbread. Same for a smoked cheddar.

Fresh goat's cheese, ricotta and curd

Delicate, acidic and easy to bury. Plain is safest. For a little lift, rosemary Crackerthins at $2.99 work, because rosemary and goat's cheese are old friends. Avoid truffle, olive and anything with dried fruit in it.

Manchego, pecorino and dry sheep's milk cheeses

Salty and firm, so they want sweetness and enough body to carry a hard shard. Quince and almond crisps are the classic pairing for a reason: quince with manchego is a Spanish default that survived the trip to an Australian summer intact.

How many crackers per person

Plan by what the board is being asked to do, not by how many people are in the room.

One rule of thumb that holds up: a 150g pack of seed crisps goes further than a 100g box of water crackers even though it looks like less, because each crisp is dense enough to be a mouthful on its own.

Crackers are one decision on a board that has several. Our guide on how to build a cheese board covers layout and how much cheese to buy, and the Christmas charcuterie board adds cured meat. For the rest of what goes out beside the board, our snacking range has the nuts and the crisps.

Five things that go wrong, and how to avoid them

1. The crackers go out too early. An Australian December afternoon takes the crunch out of an open box in under an hour. Put out what people will eat in the first half hour and keep the rest sealed.
2. Cold cheese, thin cracker. Cheese straight from the fridge is hard enough to break a water cracker in half. Bring it out 30 to 45 minutes before serving, longer for a big wheel.
3. Everything on one plate. Seeded crisps shed, and within twenty minutes their crumbs are over the plain crackers. Give the seeded ones their own end of the board.
4. Not enough plain. Interesting crackers get eaten first; plain crackers get eaten longest. Plain should be about half of what you buy.
5. The gluten-free guest gets an afterthought. Gluten free Crackerthins use potato starch, which gives them a distinct crunch and a buttery flavour, in original, black pepper and rosemary from $2.95. Put them on a separate plate with their own knife before anyone has to ask, and the rest of the gluten free range is worth a look.

Everything except the cheese

We do not sell cheese, which is a useful position to write this from: we have no reason to talk you out of the good wedge at your local deli. We sell everything that goes around it, and the Just Add Cheese Hamper at $79.95 is that idea in a box. Mini artisan crackers with sea salt, original Crackerthins and the accompaniments that sit alongside them, so the only thing left to buy is fresh on the day.

Cracker and cheese questions

What crackers go with cheese?

Plain water crackers suit soft cheeses like brie, camembert and fresh goat's cheese. Sturdy rustic crackers suit aged cheddar and hard cheese. Fruit and nut seed crisps suit blue and washed rind, because the sweetness balances the salt. Flatbread and pita are for dips. Buy two styles, with plain making up about half.

What crackers go best with brie?

A plain, thin water cracker. Brie is delicate and a flavoured cracker takes over the mouthful, so a plain Crackerthin or a sea salt artisan cracker is the safest choice and usually the best one. For contrast instead, a fig and olive seed crisp cuts the cream without masking it.

How many crackers do you need per person on a cheese board?

Allow 4 to 6 per person for pre-dinner grazing, 10 to 12 for an afternoon of picking, and 14 to 16 if the board is the meal. For eight people grazing before dinner, two 100g boxes is about right, one plain and one seeded. Keep an unopened pack back for the refresh.

Are seed crackers better than plain crackers for cheese?

Not better, different. Seed crisps carry fruit and nuts, so they double as the accompaniment and suit strong cheeses like blue, washed rind and aged cheddar. Plain crackers are neutral, so they suit delicate cheeses and never fight what is on top. A good board has both.

Pick two boxes from our crackers range, one plain and one with something going on, and the cheese already in your fridge is a better board than it was this morning. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched from Geelong the same day, and shipping is free Australia-wide over $100. To send the whole thing instead, our Christmas hampers do the same job in a box, with hampers from $59.95.