How to Fold Meat for a Charcuterie Board

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If you’ve been wondering how to fold meat for a charcuterie board, you are in the right place. There are no hard and fast rules to creating a charcuterie board. Each board will be unique to its creator, and you can do whatever you please with your board. However, I have a few ideas you might like to make creating boards easier.

What is a charcuterie board?

A charcuterie board is usually served on a wooden or stone board, and consists of a selection of meats, soft cheeses, hard cheeses, crackers, or bread. Elaborate charcuterie can also include fresh fruit, and vegetables! You can even include dips and spreads in small bowls on your board.

If you are looking for more information on how to put your boards together, check out our post on How to Make a Charcuterie Board.

What is the difference between a charcuterie board and a cheese board?

A basic cheese board just includes a selection of cheeses, but when cheese boards begin to include other ingredients like meats and fruits, they are essentially the same. It’s just a personal preference on what you call it. Charcuterie is a french word that essentially means cured meats.

We know that charcuterie boards are all about cheese whether it is goat cheese, blue cheese, or any other cheese platter cheese you can think of, but it is important to know how to fold meat for a charcuterie board in a way that adds different textures and some excitement to your board. The perfect charcuterie board gets a little fancy with the meats. With most of these methods the pieces of meat are pre-separated and easy to grab, unlike if you just added the meat to the board the same way it comes out of the package. The meats and cheeses are the most important elements of a charcuterie board.

Depending on the type of meat you are working with, you can make a salami rose, salami chains, prosciutto ribbons, and more! It’s easy to place things like fruit and crackers, but just tossing meat onto a board isn’t the most appealing way to serve this great appetizer. So, I have a few tips to help you out.

Salami Rose

To make salami roses, I have a full tutorial here, but you essentially drape genoa salami over the edges of a shot glass for a fun rose effect that will add so much visually to your board. We used these in our Easter Charcuterie Board.

Prosciutto Ribbons

Next, there are prosciutto ribbons. To make these, start by laying out your pieces of prosciutto, and folding them about half or 3/4 of the way up, concentrating on folding up the side with more of the fat marbling so you have the meat side situated farther up. Press the folded edge so that it stays. Then, take the folded prosciutto and start folding it back and forth, continuing to pinch along that folded edge so that the ribbons stay folded together. It will end up looking like a handheld fan, sort of. You can then place those, by lying them down, and extend the ribbon with more pieces of proscuitto.

For Thinner Meats

To fold together thinner meats, like capicola, you can fold them in half, and then roll them into triangles for a fun presentation that you can build onto. These you can layer on top of each other to add some height to your board, and they start to resemble bouquets of little salty meats.

Salami Chains

To make salami chains out of hard salami, separate your pieces of salami. Take a slice of salami and fold in half. Repeat for all of the slices of salami. With the folded edge of a slice facing down, take two pieces and curve them into each other. Continue this with more pieces of salami to make a chain that you can easily pick up a piece of salami from.

Charcuterie boards are the perfect appetizer for serving a small group or even a larger party. Hopefully these tips for how to fold meat for a charcuterie board will help you determine how to style your next board.

Here are some more of our easy charcuterie board ideas-

• Pre-make your charcuterie board, and wrap it in plastic wrap so you can keep it refrigerated until time to serve. You’ll save a lot of time by just having to adjust a few things when it comes time for party prep.
• Use a variety of meats on your board, and a variety of cheeses, as well. Let those be the star, and then fill in the board with different great addition options like pickles, fruit, and vegetables. You want different types of meats of various sizes for the best results.
• Fill the remaining space with crackers or crispy baguette slices, and even dried fruit and fresh herbs can be great to fill empty space.
• No need to buy anything special. We love making our boards on a large wooden cutting board, that’s really all you need. Some cheese knives can come in handy, too for prepping your board, but they aren’t required.

I hope these ideas and tips come in handy for your next party that calls for a delicious, beautiful charcuterie board.

Check out some of the boards we have made-

Easter Charcuterie Board

Patriotic Charcuterie Board

Individual Charcuterie Cups