Halloween Charcuterie Board

Need the perfect Spooky Charcuterie Board this Halloween? This festive Halloween Charcuterie Board is full of familiar ingredients, but is made with a spooky twist! Serve this at your Halloween party for a ghoulish treat that's easy to put together.

Spooky season is absolutely our favorite time of year! We love Halloween, so we had to make a Halloween-themed board. It has a lot of similar ingredients to a traditional charcuterie board, with a few fun extras for the season.

Make the perfect Halloween snack board with cured meats, cheeses, and fun seasonal produce and extras.

Serve with your favorite fall cocktail, like this slow cooker mulled wine or this Halloween punch recipe!

You may also like this fall charcuterie board, this Halloween pasta with meatball eyeballs, this vampire's kiss cocktail, this Halloween snack mix, this black velvet cake, or these black velvet cupcakes for dessert!

Jump to:

• ❤️Why we love this recipe
• 🎃Ingredient notes
• 📖Instructions
• ✨Tips & tricks
• 🎃Pairings
• 💭Frequently asked questions
• ⏲Equipment
• 🥣Storage
• 🌟Leave a review!
• More Recipes To Try
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Community

❤️Why we love this recipe

• Fun and spooky - A cute and spooky board with minimal effort! What's not to love? Whether you're enjoying a Hocus Pocus movie night with loved ones or serving multiple people at once, we'll show you how to make the perfect charcuterie board for your next Halloween party.
• Completely customizable - All you need is a guest list to get started with a little planning surrounding preferences, diets, and dietary restrictions. You can include different types of items depending on your personal tastes and preferences. There's no strict rules, use your favorite items.
• Feed a crowd - A great way to feed people with a variety of different preferences. Food allergies? No problem, you can customize the board to suit you and your guests' needs. We'll offer suggestions on how to fit multiple diets.
• Sweet, salty, & savory flavors - Grab a large board and a variety of meats, cheese, fresh fruit, and other snacks. Since it's Halloween, we like to include both sweet and savory items that aren't always traditional on charcuterie board, like this homemade apple butter and easy salted caramel.
• Prep ahead - You can do a lot of the prep work a day or so in advance, then just put it all together on the day of! We love a time saving solution.

🎃Ingredient notes

Please note that the items we used are only our suggestions; you can use whatever you want. The ingredients you use will also depend on what is available at your local grocery store.

Feel free to skip to the recipe card to see our suggestions for the board pictured

When making a charcuterie board, you should concern yourself with these main things: a variety of textures, and tastes.

Consider how fruits will taste alongside some of the meats and cheese. Certain fruits (like grapes, apples, and citrus) are safe, versatile bets. Get creative! When you're looking to feed lots of people, tastes vary, so it's a good idea to provide a variety of options.

Meats

• The general rule of thumb is to use between 3-5 different meats to accompany all of the other snacks. There's no magic number! We opted for a variety of assorted Spanish & Italian meats. la We included serrano ham, salchichon (Spanish salami), and chorizo.
• We also used some Italian-style truffle salami bites.

Cheeses 

• Use a mixture of your favorites, keeping in mind texture, as well as taste, including sharp, mild, and funky flavors. Again, use 3 - 5 varieties. We used cheeses that pair well with both Italian and Spanish flavor profiles.
• First we added some mozzarella pearls to a small bowl, then added some fun candy eyeballs (affiliate link) on top. Make sure to serve with a small spoon for easy serving.
• Next we used some sharp cheddar and provolone cheese slices & some small Halloween cookie cutters. We used Halloween-themed small cookie cutters to make ghost shapes, bat shapes, and pumpkin shapes. We also included more sharp cheddar blocks for smaller bites and a variety of textures.
• Manchego cheese is one of our all time favorites, and it pairs well with all of the Spanish meats.
• Another cheese we often add is a creamy goat cheese, or seasonal goat cheese with fruit, and a wedge of brie cheese

Crackers and bread

• Go for an assortment of different serving vessels. We use some sweeter pumpkin crisps for this cute Halloween-themed board. We also used a couple of types of crackers that were more neutral in flavor.
• Other great ideas would be to add seeded crisps, fresh bread, toasted baguette slices, and pretzel sticks would be great additions.

Fruit

• Opt for seasonal favorites, like fresh figs, grapes, apples, and little clementine or mandarin oranges, since they look like little pumpkins. We also included blackberries because of their deep purple color.
• Pears, persimmons, pomegranate arils, or other citrus, like regular or blood orange slices are also great additions.
• Dried fruit like apricots, cherries, or cranberries would also work wonderfully here.
• Keep in mind color! We used some dark grapes, since they were perfect for Halloween! Green grapes would also be fun for this board.

Spreads & dips 

• Use a seasonal fruit spread of your choice. We added this instant pot apple butter since it's full of warm fall spices, and our salted caramel sauce for the apple slices. Try our keto salted caramel sauce or fig spread for a sugar free option.
• A little bit of regular honey, honeycomb, or maple syrup would also work very well here. You may also enjoy this hot honey!

Nuts and seeds

• Use a few different types of your favorite nuts. We went with some dry roasted maple almonds from Trader Joe's (they're so good!) and some pistachios but anything will do, and it's a great way to fill out empty space on the board. These keto candied pecans would go wonderfully on this board for any keto or low-sugar diets.
• Pumpkin seeds or pepitas, along with sunflower seeds would also be great seasonal additions to the board!

Special Halloween sweets & extras

• We added yummy dark chocolate pieces to our board, cuz it's Halloween of course! Plus, chocolate is a wonderful sweet addition to any charcuterie board.
• You can add fun Halloween foods, like caramel apples, candy pumpkins, candy corn, caramel corn, and Halloween cookies and sweets are also great additions. Our Halloween snack mix or Halloween chocolate bark would make an incredible addition to this board!
• You can always add more themed food! There are tons of great options to add to your Halloween board, Trader Joe's always seems to have fun seasonal items if you live near one.

Veggies and salty bits

• Don't forget the olives! They provide a nice salty bite and accompany the meats and cheeses. You can also include veggies like bell pepper slices, or even roasted brussel sprouts for dipping, or gherkins (small pickles).

📖Instructions

📋Prep work

• Allow meat and cheese to sit out at room temperature for 20 - 30 minutes before serving. We do recommend cutting cheese while cold, however.
• You can prepare everything the day ahead of time, and store it in the fridge in an airtight container or wrapped in plastic. We don't recommend placing nuts, crackers, or bread on the board until it's time to serve, or else they may become soggy.
• Caramel sauce, apple butter, and other spreads and sauces can be made a week or so in advance.
• Make sure to heat caramel sauce before adding it to the board. Apple butter should sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving to ensure it's easy to spread and not too cold.

Step 1

Anchor the board with small bowls or ramekins filled with any wet items, like apple butter, caramel sauce, and mozzarella balls.

Step 2

Add cheeses and fruits. In most cases, I would have added the meats first, but because of the fun shapes of the cheese, we wanted to make sure those had a home first!

We also added on some fruit, and as you can see we strategically paired the apples with the caramel sauce.

Step 3

Finish it up and add the finishing touches! Add meats, nuts, olives, crackers, and remaining items.

Add some small spoons and forks or knives to the board for easy serving. Enjoy!

✨Tips & tricks

• Use a larger board than you think you'll need. We always add lots to the board, so we opt for an extra large board usually. You can always fill in empty spaces with more decorations, crackers, fruit, and nuts.
• Keep extras nearby to refill the board as it runs out. You may feel like you have too much food at first, but if you prep and keep leftovers closeby, you can refill the board as items run out.
• Add more spooky decor. Have fun with it! Add Halloween decorations like plastic spiders, skulls, mini pumpkins, and skeleton hands. You can also add seasonal flowers and little gourds like small white & orange pumpkins. Don't forget a skeleton hand to hold long, thin crackers!
• Use your favorite items. Having a huge charcuterie display looks beautiful, but the best board is one you'll actually eat! Don't feel pressure to add cheeses and meats that won't get eaten.
• Use the seasons best. Using in season fruit tastes better, and is more cost effective. It's a win-win!
• Shop your pantry before grocery shopping. We always have crackers, dried fruit, nuts, olives, honey, and more in the pantry. Save a few bucks by using things you already have on hand.
• Prep as much as you can the day before. Hosting can be a big undertaking, so getting your charcuterie board elements ready to go a bit in advance can makes things go very smoothly.
• Use parchment paper for easy clean up. You can use parchment paper on top of the board before placing items on for a super simple cleanup.
• Label items for a large group. If you'd like, you can always print out small labels to show guests what is what on the board. Since everyone has different taste buds, this can help guests choose items they love. This is especially useful for picky eaters!

🎃Pairings

Here are a few of our favorite pairings on the board. Get creative! If you're looking for a fun way to learn about interesting flavor profiles and pairings, we highly recommend this awesome book (affiliate link).

• Try truffle salami bites with mozzarella pearls or provolone cheese slices.
• Apple slices and caramel sauce, of course!
• Apple butter + sharp cheddar, yum!
• Manchego cheese with serrano, chorizo, or Spanish salami.
• Figs + literally any meat on the board.
• Cheddar and apple slices.

💭Frequently asked questions

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⏲Equipment

Here are a few things you'll need to make this spooky charcuterie board!

• Use a large serving board. The size of your board will depend on how many people you are serving. We find a lot of our boards at TJ Maxx & Ross for some incredible deals and unique pieces. We found the marble serving board pictured at Ross.
• You can also use a large baking sheet or cutting board instead of a wooden or marble board.
• Make sure to serve with small spoons, small serving bowls, knives, and forks.
• Have fun and add your favorite spooky decorations!

🥣Storage

Many specialty kinds of cheese and meats don't have a very long shelf life once they are exposed to the air.

Any leftovers should be stored separately by food type (cheeses, meats, fruits, etc.), tightly wrapped in plastic wrap or in an airtight container, and kept in the fridge for up to 3 days (or less depending on the types of cheeses you used).

We don't recommend freezing leftovers.

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