Christmas Charcuterie Board, Built From the Pantry

How to build it

1. Take the cheese out of the fridge 45 minutes before people arrive. Cold cheese tastes of almost nothing, and in a hot room it will soften on the board anyway.

2. Choose a board bigger than you think you need, then put three small bowls on it before anything else: olives in one, pear chutney in another, caramelised onions in the third. Everything is arranged around them.

3. Place the three cheeses well apart, and cut each one differently. Wedge the hard cheese, leave the soft one whole with the top scored, crumble the blue. Different shapes read as different cheeses from across the room.

4. Fold the cured meat rather than laying it flat. Ribbon the prosciutto loosely so air runs through it, fold the salami slices in half twice into little fans, and let each meat run in a river between two cheeses.

5. Fan the crackers along one edge and stand a few upright against the bowls. Keep the seed crisps in one block so they stay whole, and refill from the packet rather than piling them all on at the start.

6. Slice the fruit paste into thin fingers and lay them next to the blue cheese. Sweet and salty next to each other saves people working out what goes with what.

7. Fill every remaining gap with the truffle nuts, grape clusters and rosemary sprigs. A board looks generous when you cannot see the wood, so keep going until the surface is covered.

8. Slice the pears or figs last, just before the board goes out, so the cut edges stay bright. Put out two small knives and stand back.

Questions we get asked

What do you put on a charcuterie board in Australia?

Charcuterie means the meat, so start there: three cured meats of different textures. Then three cheeses, two or three crackers, something sweet like chutney or fruit paste, something sharp like olives, and fresh fruit. For an Australian December, favour hard cheese over very soft, keep the board out of the sun, and cut fruit at the last minute so it does not weep.

How much charcuterie per person?

As a graze before lunch, allow 50g of cured meat and 60g of cheese a head, plus eight or so crackers. If the board is the meal, roughly double it to 100g of meat and 120g of cheese. Too big beats too small, and the leftovers become very good sandwiches on Boxing Day.

How far ahead can you make a charcuterie board?

Buy the pantry items weeks ahead and build the board about 40 minutes before guests arrive. You can lay out the dry parts an hour or two early, crackers, nuts, fruit paste and the empty bowls, and cover them with a clean tea towel. Add meat, cheese and cut fruit last so nothing sweats or dries at the edges.

What is the difference between a charcuterie board and a cheese board?

A cheese board leads with cheese and treats everything else as support. A charcuterie board leads with cured meat, and cheese is one of several things sitting alongside it. Most Australian Christmas boards are honestly both, which is fine. If you want the cheese-first version, we set that out step by step in our cheese board method.

Buy the pantry half once

We hand-pack hampers in Corio, Victoria, and a board follows the same rule we use there: nothing goes in that we have not tasted. Order the jars, crackers, nuts and fruit paste in one go and they will keep happily until Christmas, with free Australia-wide shipping on orders over $100. Add the bon bons and the rest of the table from festive entertaining essentials while you are there, or if you would rather we did the packing, the same things turn up inside our Christmas hampers.