How to Build a French Charcuterie Board

It was during my first visit to see Gaylord in France that I realised how seriously the French take charcuterie. While it took me another year to eat snails, then a whole year after that I finally encountered frogs legs, charcuterie has been a weekly snack since my plane touched down in 2020. As you can imagine, it’s been a really difficult time. A few slices of saucisson and a couple of bites of cheese make a satisfying snack. But load a French charcuterie board with cold meats, cheeses and fruit, and you have a full meal.

In France, meal times require an adjustment period for the uninitiated. Dinner is usually scheduled for after 8pm – so, a warning to all British and American visitors, if you’re looking for a restaurant to serve you dinner at 6pm, you won’t find it. Instead, this is reserved for apéro, essentially the French for ‘snack time’. Nursing glasses of wine, friends can chat over a planche (board) of charcuterie and cheese.

It’s taken me two years (two whole years) to become accustomed to the enigma of French eating, not just the change in meal times but also to the amount of cheese and meat included in their diets (not that it’s been a challenge, oh no, there’s just crippling guilt for all the saturated fat that passes these lips), and I must say French charcuterie boards have really helped the adjustment.

But, down to business – how to make the best French charcuterie board

There are many occasions where we all crave a platter of cheese and meats, Christmas for one, or just a regular Friday night. There are a few essential elements to every planche and these are the cheese, charcuterie and bread.

Cheese

As someone who is partial to a cheeseboard, or – let’s just go all out – a cheese and wine night with a table groaning under cheese varieties and crackers, I worship the cheese on any charcuterie board. Plus, this a tribute to the French, and where else in the world is the capital of fromage with its rumoured 1,600 national cheeses?

When selecting your preferred cheese, always buy artisan varieties – look for AOC (“Appellation d’Origine Côntrolée”) or AOP (“Appellation d’Origine Protégée”) on the label – and it’s best to group your options into categories:

Hard cheeses

Since arriving on France’s shores, I’ve become a lover of the hard cheese Comté. Sold by age whether it’s six, 12 or 24 months old, Comté is smooth and creamy, sometimes full of those salty amino acid crystals that crunch with every bite. Another favourite is Abondance, another buttery smooth cheese.

Soft cheeses

Besides Brie and Camembert which are soft cheese icons, there are endless further varieties of soft or semi-soft cheese to try, some more pungent than others! A word regularly used for soft cheese is ‘ripe’. While negatively associated with smell, it also means youth. Try Reblochon, a semi-soft cheese used for tartiflette, or, if you’re feeling daring, Vieux Boulogne, which was announced as the world’s smelliest cheese.

Goat’s cheese

Coming in both hard and soft varieties, goat’s cheese offers a creamy tang to the charcuterie board, and can either be eaten in slices or spread over chunks of baguette. Try Picodon, a round of smooth crumbly cheese, or Le Chevrot, firm yet creamy with an aged, wrinkled rind. As a lover of goat’s cheese, my own French charcuterie board included two – a hard cheese aged in pressed grapes (marc) for a fruity, ripe flavour, and a two-tone soft goat’s cheese sandwiching a creamy cow’s cheese in the middle.

Blue cheese

Ever the polarising figure, blue cheese triggers mixed reactions. The milder end of the spectrum such as Bleu de Bresse will appeal to even blue cheese sceptics, whereas the opposing sharp and funky Roquefort made from sheep’s milk will be reserved just for those who love it (along with a handy bag to put over your head as you eat).

At a minimum, aim to balance the board with three cheeses, and adjust the quantities according to your number of guests.

Charcuterie

Meat is the pumping heart of French culture, and by now, I’ve grown accustomed to the laden platter of meat which emerges at Christmas, and the duck, the sausage, the foie gras, the general meatiness of the south of France and in Toulouse. A snack for me back before this excessive meat fiesta would have been a pot of dip and a nice supply of crackers. Now it’s slice after paper-thin slice of saucisson, eaten like crisps from a packet.

Each of the following categories can be divided into sub-sections, but I’ve attempted to keep things simple otherwise you’ll be reading this all day:

Saucisson

This dried, salted and aged sausage is uniquely French – there are even aisles in the supermarket solely for the sale of saucisson, all smartly lined up in rows of snowy white sticks. Each region makes their own saucisson according to the terroir (the food and produce of the area, essentially the taste of the land), and the flavours range from salty to funky, some seasoned with spices or nuts. All are melt-in-the-mouth fatty though and delicious when layered on baguette with a little sweet butter.

Ham

Cured or cooked, ham (or jambon) is an essential addition to any French charcuterie board. Naturally there are numerous varieties including jambon cuits or blanc (cooked hams), jambon cru (young salted hams), jambon sec (aged salted hams) and jambon fumé (smoked ham). Jambon de Bayonne is a French alternative to Italian parma ham, a jambon cru, and is a rich dark meat from its extensive salting and maturing, marbled with fat.

Rillettes or pâté

Soft charcuterie is an odd phrase, but it literally means what it says. Pâté after all is French for ‘paste’, and amongst all these firm, chewy textures, it’s pleasant to balance a French charcuterie board with some salty spreadables. My favourite is rillettes, pork or goose, shredded meat nestled under a layer of fat and squashed into a soft terrine.

You’ve been warned – you can’t prepare a low-calorie French charcuterie board.

Bread and Extras

Baguette

It goes without saying that for a French charcuterie board, baguette should be the vehicle of choice. Rip off a hunk, spread with creamy goat’s cheese or pile with ham. There’s no need for crackers or bread sticks if you have a good crusty baguette within reach.

To balance the rich, fatty flavours on a French charcuterie board, optional extras are added as refreshing palate cleansers. These can include fruit, pickles, chutneys, jams and honey, all adding notes of sweetness to balance the savoury meat and cheese.

Fruit

Cheeseboards are famous for including a bunch of grapes tumbled like heavy rosary beads, but you can also chop up figs, apples or stone fruits such as nectarines, peaches or plums.

Pickles

There’s nothing better to strip the fat from your mouth than a mouth-puckering pickle, and a classic French pickle is the cornichon. You could also add a pile of these pretty pink pickled onion slices or chunky dill pickles for a satisfactory crunch.

Condiments

Now condiments feel fancy don’t they, and they are a particular favourite for those of us who love combinations of sweet and savoury. Cherry or apricot jams work well, as does honey or big chunks of honeycomb.

Butter

Finally, the non-negotiable extra, creamy sweet butter. There is enough salt on the board to cover your next three meals, so keep the butter unsalted to balance the other rich flavours.

There is no wrong way to make a great French charcuterie board, if all you want is a platter of blue cheese then you do you (although you might not have any guests). All that’s required is an even balance of flavours and textures to keep you and your friends eating!