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Charcuterie and cheese is a quick and easy keto meal prep idea! Pack some charcuterie meats, cheese, pickles, olives, and celery in your favorite meal prep container. It’ll make for a delicious, grab and grow lunch.
Cheese and Charcuterie + Meal Prep
Appetizer boards are all the rage right now, so why not hop on the bandwaggon?
Charcuterie meat and cheese boards are great for when you need a quick no fuss party appetizer, that looks like you put in a lot of effort. It not only makes for ideal no stress summer entertaining but also works perfectly for meal prepping your way through the week.
No cooking, baking, kitchen skills required for this one! All you need is 1 trip to the grocery store, and 10 spare minutes to prep, and you’re good to go!
What is Charcuterie?
You might be thinking right now, what in the world is charcuterie, and do I even want to eat that? Well, I promise you that charcuterie isn’t nearly as weird as the name might suggest.
Charcuterie is a French word that essentially refers to deli meats. The charcuterie branch of cooking is devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit that are primarily derived from pork.
The meats are prepared in a way that would help preserve the meat before refrigeration was an option, they are prepared today for their flavors derived from the preservation processes. You will often see charcuterie paired with used to pair with cheese, served as appetizer board.
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How to Pick the Best Charcuterie and Cheese Pairings
If you really want to be the hostess with the mostess at your dinner party, you’ll definitely want to learn put together the best charcuteries and cheese pairing to make an A+ charcuterie board.
Don’t worry about trying to head out to any specialty stores to find the most expensive cheese, you can find pretty good quality options at most grocery stores near the deli section.
Here are a few tips and tricks for getting the right pairings to keep everyone happy:
There are a lot of very scientific rules of how to pair the best cheese and the best meat, but I don’t think any of us are trying to get that technical, so the good rule of thumb is to just offer a wide variety.
Select a variety of textures and flavors when it comes to both the cheese and the charcuterie. You’ll want to have a mix of both mellow and strong flavors. You also want to have a mix of hard cheese and soft cheese, as well as hard and soft charcuterie.
What Cheese is Best for a Charcuterie Board?
This is a little bit of a trick question because there’s really no cheese that’s wrong for a cheese and charcuterie board. If you’re someone like me, you accept cheese in any shape or form.
With that being said, cheese can be overwhelming to pick out since there are so many options. So, to cut down on the stress of choosing, I keep in mind how many cheeses I want to pick out, and what kind of cheese varieties I want on the board.
Here are some of the basic cheese categories, to keep in mind and make the process easier.
- Aged: Gouda, Sharp Cheddar, Gruyere
- Soft and creamy: Brie, Camembert, Epoisses, Burrata, Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella
- Crumbly: Goat and Feta Cheese
- Firm: Parmigiano Reggiano, Manchego, Gouda
- Smoked: Smoked Gouda, Provolone, and Cheddar
For more info on all things cheese, check out this How To Make a Cheese Board!
Tips For Preparing A Cheese and Charcuterie Board
When prepping a cheese and charcuterie board, you’ll want to be sure to have a variety of different options, that way everyone can pick and choose based on their own preferences. Also, this allows everyone to try different combos and have fun with it.
You’ll also want to have more than just the meat and cheese set up on the board. Try adding some spreads, like stone ground mustard, and other various sides such as blackberries, olives, celery, or whatever catches your eye!
Lastly, be sure to pick out a fun board to place it on, and that’s big enough to hold all of your ingredients. This for me is what really makes everything come together. The presentation really makes all the difference when we are talking about cheese and charcuterie.
Meal Prepping Cheese and Charcuterie
While charcuterie meats and cheese make for a great party appetizer, they also make for a great lunch that can be meal prepped and ready to go for easy healthy eating all week long.
Meal prepping this recipe is super simple since you don’t have to bake anything ahead of time. Just run to the store, pick up everything you need, and get ready to organize. You’ll need to have several airtight containers ready to place everything into. I prefer the glass meal prep containers that have the three separate compartments to keep everything organized, but any airtight containers will work.
To meal prep simply remove all your ingredients from the package, and place the amount for 1 serving into each container, once complete, seal each container and store in the refrigerator for up to one week.
Note: this recipe only has the ingredient amounts for 1 serving, so if you want to make enough for a whole work week, be sure to multiply each quantity amount by 5.
More Party Apps You’ll Love
- Keto Cheese-Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers
- Super Easy Buffalo Chicken Dip Recipe
- Keto Baked Italian Meatball Recipe
- Quick and Easy Antipasto Skewers
- The Best Buttery Garlic Mushrooms
- Cauliflower Bites
Want to learn more about meal prepping? Check out these posts:
- Keto Meal Prep Made Easy
- The Ultimate Keto Breakfast Meal Prep Guide
- Keto Chicken Meal Prep
- Healthy Meal Prep Tools for Easy Meal Prep
If you found this post and you’re ready to start a keto diet, check out our 5 Day Budget Keto Meal Plan. You’ll get 5 days worth of recipes and eat for under $5 per day!
If you need a little more hand holding and want something longer term, you may be interested in our 4 week keto meal prep course. It comes with 4 weeks of keto meal plans (1200, 1500 and 1800 calorie levels), weekly keto grocery lists, 40 keto recipe ebook, how to meal prep ebook, videos and more!
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Or if you don’t have enough time to cook, we’ve partnered with Diet-To-Go to give you $40 off 1 week of keto meals! They’re super convenient to have on hand. Store them in your fridge if you plan to have them that week, or keep them in the freezer for those “just in case” times.
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Ingredients
- 2 ounces sharp white cheddar sliced
- 1 ounce prosciutto
- 6 olives
- 1/2 ounce cornichons
- 1 stalk celery cut into sticks
Instructions
- Arrange all components on a plate or in a meal prep container.
- Serve.
Notes
2 teaspoons stone-ground mustard
2 tablespoons fresh blackberries
