The Ultimate Fall Harvest Charcuterie Board | Milk & Honey Nutrition (2024)

• byMary Ellen Phipps, MPH, RDN, LD
• UpdatedOctober 4, 2020

This post was sponsored by Sprouts Farmers Market. All thoughts and ideas are my own.

This Ultimate Fall Charcuterie Board is perfect for everything from a fun family-night-in, to a small gathering, to a snack board on a weekend afternoon!

Tired of the same ol’ soup and casserole type recipes for Fall? This Ultimate Fall Harvest Charcuterie Board is loaded with seasonal produce and fall flavors.

This is not your basic Fall cheese board

The key to truly building the best Fall charcuterie board is thinking beyond the typical meat and cheese board. Let’s turn this board into a full meal everyone will love. We do this by also adding in fruits, veggies, dips, nuts, and more. And I love to find everything I need at my local Sprouts Farmers Market. The bulk bins and deli have so many options for building a great Fall charcuterie board.

How to build the ultimate charcuterie board

Whether you’re working on a Fall charcuterie board for Thanksgiving or another theme, there’s a quick and easy formula I like to follow to help me decide what to put on my board:

• 2 seasonal fruits
• 2 seasonal veggies
• Something crunchy
• 2 plant based fats
• 2 proteins
• 1-2 dips
• Some fun treats!

Now, you certainly don’t have to stick to these numbers exactly, but if you’re new to making larger boards like this, it can be a helpful guide to follow.

If you’re curious how I apply this to individual snack meals, make sure to check out this post on snack meals I did here.

The best fall charcuterie produce

I like to start all my boards with the produce I want to include. Since this is a Fall board, we’re going to stick with some of my Fall favorites that don’t need refrigeration and can be left out for longer periods of time. My top picks for fall fruit are pears and apples. (And to prevent them from turning brown, you can spritz them with some diluted lemon juice.) For veggies, I’m going to use roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes.

My favorite charcuterie dips

The dips I choose are dependent on what my “something crunchy” from the list above is. You can go sweet or savory, and either make something homemade like my Creamy Dijon Spinach Artichoke Dip or something sweeter like my Holiday Snickerdoodle Cookie Dip.I also love the Sprouts Brand Spinach Dip or Original Hummus… you can find both in the deli section of your local Sprouts store.

Don’t forget those plant based fats

The easiest, and my favorite, plant based fats to use on charcuterie boards is raw or roasted nuts. I’ll show you how to arrange them below, but they make for perfect little “hole fillers” on your board. The Sprouts bulk bins have all sorts of nuts and seed options. See the photo below for how they’re making the bulk department still accessible during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The best charcuterie meats and proteins

The sky really is the limit here. I like to focus on the visual presentation here too and try to go for thinner sliced meats like prosciutto, thinly sliced turkey, or salami because they can fold into pretty shapes too.

Best cheeses for a charcuterie board

My go-to cheeses for charcuterie boards are a softer brie that people can spread and scoop and then slices of parmesan, which is harder can can be placed on top of a cracker quite easily! But if those aren’t your favorites, no worries… try to pick one soft/spreadable cheese and one harder cheese that can be served as slices.The deli at Sprouts has a great selection!

How to assemble a charcuterie platter

The key to those beautiful boards you see all over instagram is the order in which you put everything on the board, and the size of your “piles”… unless you’re going for a specific design, I recommend following the order below and not putting any grouping of food larger than your fist in one spot. Have your large board out and place the items in this order:

• Your dip bowls/dishes. Don’t actually put the dip in yet, but decide where on the platter you want them.
• Then place your produce, making sure each type is in at least two different spots on the board, ie don’t put all of your apple slices in one spot on the board
• Next place your cheeses on the board and then your meats. And feel free to create creative if you’d like and fold the meat into fun shapes.
• Place your “something crunchy” things and your fun treats throughout the board.
• Now, use your nuts and any other smaller items to “fill in” any holes that might be left on the board.
• And if you want to get super fancy, you can add some whole pieces of produce for garnish or fillers throughout the board.