30 Christmas Charcuterie Board Ideas, Platters & Dessert Boards
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When you’re entertaining a crowd or need to bring a plate for your next Christmas party invite, you can’t go wrong with these Christmas charcuterie boards and Christmas platter ideas. Savoury Christmas cheese platters and Christmas dessert grazing boards that will be an instant hit! Best of all, they are easy to put together without much time needed too!
Festive Christmas Platter Ideas & Holiday Grazing Boards
These Christmas party platters and grazing boards are almost too beautiful to eat… ALMOST! I’ve sorted them into two categories to help get you inspired – Christmas cheese platter ideas and sweet Christmas dessert ideas. Check them out below:
CHRISTMAS CHEESE PLATTER IDEAS
When you're looking for a savoury option, these charcuterie and cheese grazing boards for Christmas are perfect to please a crowd, with a little something to suit everyone.
Charcuterie Wreath
A charcuterie wreath looks beautiful on the Christmas party food table or even as a festive starter on Christmas day. You can create your own combination of wreath snacks - cured meats, crackers, cheese, nuts, fruit and veggies.
Christmas Antipasto Wreath
This Christmas antipasto platter is another wreath platter variation, this one with mini kabobs forming the wreath shape.
Christmas Charcuterie Board
Another way to serve up your charcuterie essentials for Christmas is in a tree format, like this yummy mix of fruit, vegetables, olives, meat, cheese and crackers.
Simple Christmas Tree Charcuterie Board (Step by Step)
Or there's this Christmas Tree Charcuterie board, paired with a little fresh rosemary from the garden to add some fragrant greenery.
Antipasto Christmas Tree
Or go for the visually beautiful vertical antipasto Christmas tree platter instead that will be the talk of the party food table!
Christmas Tree Veggie Tray
For a healthy Christmas appetiser, this veggie Christmas tree is so cute and so simple to put together, with a mix of cucumber, celery, carrot sticks, tomatoes and dip.
Mini Cheeseball Wreath
This festive holiday platter is made with mini cream cheese balls with different toppings, arranged like a wreath.
Candy Cane Christmas Charcuterie Board�
This candy cane Christmas charcuterie board combines sweet and savoury flavours into the one beautiful Christmas platter with cheese, meat, berries and chocolate pretzels to give it the red and white striped appearance.
Mozzarella Cheese and Olive Wreath
This holiday grazing board is made of olives, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese balls.
Christmas Tree Charcuterie Board
For another take on the Christmas tree charcuterie, this board is loaded with healthy snacks like fresh broccoli, tomatoes, pecan nuts and berries, along with salami and cheese.
Christmas Wreath Veggie Tray
A fun way to get your veggie servings in at Christmas party - this vegetable platter is loaded with fresh, crunchy greens and bright tomatoes and peppers.
Christmas Wreath Charcuterie Board
An easy to make circular Christmas party platter with meat, cheese, fruit, olives and vegetables adding plenty of bright colours.
Charcuterie Tree
This charcuterie tree is the ultimate festive centrepiece for your Christmas party food table!
Christmas Tree Fruit and Cheese Board
This Christmas tree board with fruit and cheese adds a little extra sweetness to the platter with berries and grapes paired with cheese and pretzels.
Veggie Christmas Tree
This healthy vegetable Christmas tree is a great way to add some fresh and light flavours to the menu.
Candy Cane Caprese Salad
This is a fun way to serve up a salad at your Christmas party, in a simple candy cane format, with balsamic and bread.
Fruit and Cheese Christmas Tree Appetiser
This festive cheese and fruit platter is loaded with little cubes of cheese, paired with sweet grapes. Christmas tree boards are such a simple way to make your normal charcuterie board look Christmasy.
Kids Christmas Charcuterie Board
This grazing board sits somewhere between sweet and savoury with a mix of both flavours - pickles, cheese, chocolate, tomatoes, cured meats and fruit galore.
CHRISTMAS DESSERT PLATTER IDEAS
Making desserts for Christmas can be a little more time-consuming if you've got baking and decorating to do. That's why these Christmas dessert grazing board ideas are a perfect way to provide a sweet treat, often without it taking long to make.
Santa Dessert Board
This Santa dessert board is so cute with a Santa cheeseball in the centre, surrounded by sweet treats and biscuits and some marshmallows and strawberries to form Santa's hat.
Reindeer Cheesecake Ball Platter
This reindeer Christmas dessert platter is just so cute with a cheesecake ball in the centre.
Christmas Fruit Wreath
This fruit wreath is a healthy yet sweet option that's sure to be a hit with all ages.
Snow Man Hot Chocolate Charcuterie Dessert Board
This snowman hot chocolate board is so cute with yummy treats to make the ultimate hot chocolate.
Hot Chocolate Charcuterie Board
So many yummy things to add to your hot chocolate on a cold winter's night.
Christmas Gnome Dessert Board
This gnome dessert board is one that caters especially for kids' Christmas party food but you can swap out the treats for any treats you like! There is red and green licorice, biscuits, strawberries and crackers, plus a festive gummi bear mix. Best of all, the gnome's beard is vanilla frosting to dip in all the treats.
Christmas Cookie Tree Board
This Christmas dessert platter is loaded with cookies, sweet treats and baked goodies.
What Goes On A Christmas Charcuterie Board
A good board is really just five or six categories arranged so people can graze. Once you know the categories, you can build one from whatever’s in the fridge.
- Cheese. Three is plenty. Pick one hard (cheddar, gouda, a good vintage), one soft (brie, camembert), and one with a bit of character (blue, a marinated fetta, something with pepper through it). Take them out of the fridge a while before serving because cold cheese tastes like nothing.
- Meat. Prosciutto, salami, ham off the bone if you’ve got Christmas leftovers. Fold or ruffle it rather than laying it flat, because it takes up more room and looks like you tried harder than you did.
- Something crunchy. Crackers, breadsticks, sliced baguette, pretzels. Put some on the board and keep the rest in reserve, because crackers are always the first thing to run out.
- Something fresh. Grapes, cherries, strawberries, cucumber, cherry tomatoes. This is where most of your red and green comes from, which is the whole reason a Christmas board looks Christmassy.
- Something sharp or pickled. Olives, cornichons, pickled onions, a chutney. It cuts through all the cheese and cured meat, and boards without it get heavy fast.
- Something sweet. Dried apricots, medjool dates, a bit of honey, or a few chocolates if you’re heading towards dessert.
- And to fill the gaps: nuts, rosemary sprigs from the garden, a few fresh cranberries scattered through. Gaps are what make a board look sparse, so fill every one of them.
How much do you need?
The rule of thumb most people use is roughly 100g of cheese and meat combined per person if the board is a starter alongside other food, and closer to 200g if the board is the meal.
Always make more than you think. A board that looks a bit bare is worse than leftovers, and cheese keeps.
Building a Christmas tree board
If you’re doing the tree shape, start with a triangle of something green (cucumber, snow peas, rosemary, spinach leaves) and build the rest inside it.
Work in horizontal rows so it reads as a tree from above rather than a green triangle with food on it. A star-shaped piece of cheese at the top and a small trunk of crackers or salami at the bottom finishes it.
An Australian Christmas Tip
If you’re building a board for an Australian Christmas (ore elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere), heat is the thing nobody warns you about. Soft cheese goes to liquid within about twenty minutes outside on a hot Summer day, and cured meat sweats.
Assemble the board in the kitchen, keep it in the fridge until people arrive, and bring it out in two halves so the second one is still cold when the first is demolished.
Skip anything chocolate-based unless you’re serving indoors with the air con on.
I hope you love these Christmas grazing board ideas and festive grazing boards. The best thing about a grazing board is that you can make it your own so easily, by adding whatever you like to the platter. And there are so many fun ways to present them that make them perfect if you’re asked to bring a plate to a holiday party or want something to serve guests and family at home on Christmas Day.
Make sure you check out these Christmas party food ideas and Christmas dessert recipes next!
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