Celebrate the festive season with the ultimate Christmas cheese board, ideal for sharing with friends and family at this time of year. Treat your loved ones to a large cheese board brimming with artisan cheese, creamy delights, cold meats. Let the Christmas cheese selection take centre stage, and delight every cheese lover in your life with the perfect Christmas sharing platter!
What do you put on a Christmas cheese board?
Go all out for the perfect Christmas cheese board this year with an impressive range of creamy holiday cheeses, dried fruits and nuts, a selection of meats, pickles and chutneys.
Paxton & Whitfield, London cheesemongers since 1797, advice that a balance of cheese is required for the perfect grazing board. Three to four cheeses is usually enough when creating a cheese board. You should go for a selection of both soft, semi-soft, semi-firm and firm.
Soft Cheeses:
- Brie, Camembert , feta, ricotta, Chevre and gorgonzola.
Semi-Soft Cheeses:
- Fontina, muenster and Gouda.
Semi-firm Cheeses:
- Manchego, Gruyere and Comte
Firm Cheeses:
- Aged cheddar, white cheddar and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
As a rule of thumb, you should allow 80-100g of cheese per person for your cheese board.
Once you have chosen your selection of cheeses, you can then look at which cold meats you would like to include for your festive board.
What meats and cheeses go together?
- Cheddar cheese with chorizo
- Swiss cheese and prosciutto
- Chevre and pepperoni
- Chorizo and Manchego
- Parmesan and prosciutto
- Gouda and Salami
- Pepper Jack Cheese with capicola
What fruit and nuts go well on a cheeseboard?
When choosing the fruits for your festive cheeseboard, we recommend always using seasonal fruits to brighten up the board. You can use citruses like orange and clementines, apples and pomegranates. All bring a delightfully sweet flavour to the board to provide the perfect balance.
If you are wanting to include dried fruits to your board, try adding dried apricots, dried pineapple rings, dates and raisins. Dried fruits are all naturally very sweet to begin with, but the fruit flavour is elevated further due to the addition of refined sugar and oil coating the fruit.
The final pairing of nuts goes hand in hand with the cheese. Recommended nuts for a cheeseboard include: walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews and pistachios (ideally de-shelled to avoid making a mess with your guests!).
Best cheeseboard crackers
Morrisons offers a delicious Cracker Selection Box, where six varieties have been included to perfectly compliment your favourite, festive cheeses:
- Beetroot & Seed Cracker – A the perfect partner for a soft cheese like Brie.
- Cracked Pepper Water Cracker – Ideal for a crumbly Cheddar Cheese
- Rosemary Cracker – Suited best for Stilton
- Sea Salt & Chive Cracker – Perfect for a creamy, mature Cheddar
- Stone Ground Wheat Cracker – Paired for Wensleydale and cranberries
- Sweet Wheat Cracker – Iconic with a white Stilton
How to make a Christmas cheese board:
- Get your wooden board ready. A standard size is between 8-20 inches in length. You could opt for a star shaped, tree shaped, or a simple, classic cheese board.
- Place your selection of cheeses first on the board. Soft cheeses, like brief, can be served as it is. For hard cheeses, like cheddar and parmesan, we recommend cutting them into slices or cubes. This makes it easier for your guests to grab a piece without having to cut the hard cheese themselves – which can be time-consuming and messy! Provide a cheese knife or spreader with each cheese. Add a pinch of Maldon Salt over the cheeses to elevate the natural sweetness and nuttiness.
- Add your sliced/rolled meats, separating them with your pots of chutneys and dips. You can provide a spoon or butter knife with these if you wish.
- Next the crackers! Fan out your crackers or crostini along the edges of the cheeseboard to make them easy to grab for your guests.
- With the remaining spaces on the board, you want to place the mixture of fruits, olives and nuts.
- Once completed, let the cheeseboard rest for at least an hour to allow the cheeses and meats to adjust to room temperature.
- Your Christmas cheese board is now ready to be relished – enjoy!
Why salt is important for cheese?
According to Cheese Science, salt is essential for major functions in cheese:
Regulates microbial growth. When salt is added to cheese, it can control the growth of microbes. This process can allow more salt-tolerant microbes to grow.
Altering texture. Salt draws out the moisture content of cheese, which is why you are left with different ratings of firmness from how much salt is added to the cheese: soft, semi-soft, semi-firm and firm.
Enhancing flavour. Salt not only gives a salty taste to cheese, but it can help enhance other flavours present, or to counteract the bitterness.
