Individual Mini Charcuterie Boards

Individual Charcuterie Boards: perfect for entertaining or for date night, full of ideas for cheeses, meats, fruits, sweets and more.

These individual charcuterie boards are perfect for entertaining, a fun addition to any special occasions, or just for the perfect night in. Especially during these strange times, sharing a large charcuterie board, with everyone reaching for their favourites doesn’t feel the safest. These boards are a great way of ensuring no one is accidentally sharing germs along with cheese. 

These are also the perfect idea for date night. A special treat for someone special.

These boards are perfect for one person, or shared between a couple with a few glasses of wine.

I wanted to include both some savoury and some sweets on my boards, so I made them about half and half. I did small groups about three of each element for the boards. It’s nice to include different color variations, and different textures when you’re choosing your elements.

Customize For Any Dietary Restrictions

One of the beauties of individual charcuterie boards is that you can customize them for anyone. Have someone in your group with dietary restrictions? No problem just switch a few ingredients for them. You might exclude nuts for someone with an allergy. Have someone who can’t have dairy, look for non-dairy cheese for them. This is perfect to accommodate anyone you’re entertaining, and not have them feel left out.

What is a Charcuterie Board?

Charcuterie Boards have become so popular lately, but exactly do we mean when we say charcuterie board? Charcuterie is actually the process of preparing and serving cured meats -think things like prosciutto and salami. It’s an old French word. The charcuterie boards that have become so popular today are a snack board of cured meats and cheeses. They often include some kind of crackers or bread, sometimes fruit, sometimes extras like nuts, mustards, chutneys. 

The term has come to mean almost any food gathered together on a board. You will see the inclusion of desserts sometimes now as well -which we used here for ours. Some people like to still strictly use the word to refer to a board that includes cured meat, others use it loosely now for any snack tray.

Choosing A Board

For an individualized charcuterie board, you want to start with wooden boards just the right size for one. I found these little bamboo cutting boards at the dollar store and they were perfect mini boards. Using a small board feels perfect for charcuterie, because it creates images of cutting up large pieces of cheese right on the board. But for these individual boards everything is already cut to serving size to make it easier, so actual small charcuterie boards, or cheese knives aren’t necessary. You might use just a beautiful dinner plate or small tray as great options. Even a rustic piece of wood, lined with parchment would be fun to use as personal charcuterie boards. The main consideration here is having the right size to accommodate one or two people. Another option is making individual appetizer cups, these are great as a party appetizer because they’re so portable, although you’d have to only use a few of our mini charcuterie board ideas, and leave off the sweet options for a cup.

What To Serve On Your Individual Charcuterie Board

Cheese

• Swiss Cheese
• Marble Cheese
• Boursin Cheese

For my board I wanted to pack all the greatness of a large board into this mini version. I added a variety of different types of cheese, all favorites of mine. You could choose your favorite cheeses for your own board. It’s always good to include some hard, soft, and semi-soft cheeses as options. I used some Swiss cheese, cut in slices, some cubes of marble cheese, and wedge of soft and creamy Boursin cheese. More good options include goat cheese, blue cheese, or sharp cheddar.

Meat

• prosciutto ham
• Italian dry salami
• pate

For the assortment of meats I served prosciutto ham wrapped around cantaloupe -a favourite of mine. I included a couple of slices of dry salami. Lastly I added a wedge of liver pate. It’s great to include a small variety of meats for your guests.

Bread/Crackers

• baguette slices
• cream crackers
• cracker sticks

I wanted to include some bread to go with the pate, so I added a few slices of a baguette. As well I included a few of my favourite crackers to enjoy with the variety of cheeses.

Fruit

• cherry tomatoes
• red grapes
• honey crisp apple
• dried strawberries

I included a few options of seasonal fruit on the boards, some grapes because they’re such a classic with the cheese. Choose red like I did, or green grapes, or purple grapes; all are delicious. I also added some apple slices, it’s such a good accompaniment to cheese too, and honey crips are so sweet. As well I added a few cherry tomatoes. And finally on the sweet end of the board I added a few dried strawberries. If you’ve never tried these I highly recommend them. I found them at the bulk food store. They are sweet and chewy, and kind of taste like candy. Fresh fruit is great, but some dried is a good idea as well.

Extras

• mixed nuts
• green olive
• caramelized onion and balsamic jam
• red pepper jelly

I wanted to add in a few extra special touches to really elevate these and take them from a good charcuterie board to a great one. A handful of mixed salted nuts added some crunch. I also included some olives, and favourite pickle would be great. My last addition was some caramelized onion and balsamic jam, and some red pepper jelly. Any favourite chutney or jam that you enjoy with jam would be great additions. I served these on some vintage tea spoons, and it was the perfect little amount and looked great on the board. You could also try very small bowls, or an ceramic asian spoon.

Sweets

• cannoli
• cream puff
• chocolate chip and sea salt cookie
• mini chocolate bar
• caramel corn

If you were using these boards as the perfect appetizer for a dinner party, you might not want to include the sweets. For our get together we had our boards as an evening snack along with some wine, so the addition of sweets was the best part and the perfect sweet ending to a mini charcuterie platter. I kept things simple with almost all store bought treats. The mini cannoli are a bakery favourite. I also picked up some frozen mini cream puffs. We had some homemade chocolate chip cookies with a sprinkling of sea salt -so good! I thought our favourite chocolate bar would be fun addition for the chocolate lovers. These are coffee crisp thins. Lastly I added a little caramel corn, which I thought would a really fun addition.

These are so much fun for your next party, or just a get together with a few friends. These would also be lovely for a date night. With these individual charcuterie boards, life really is a party!

More Inspiration

You might also like our Homemade Flatbread Crackers Recipe here.

Also check out How To Make The Perfect Cheese Board here.

You might also enjoy Homemade Cheese Straw Recipe here.