With the Olympics in full swing in one of our favorite food cities, it’s a great time to celebrate summer entertaining with French fromage! When it comes to that warm-weather entertaining, a thoughtfully crafted cheese board is one of my go-to favorites since there is no actual cooking involved. If you’ve never made one before, that’s totally okay! I have a few tricks that you could put to use to make a statement at your next get-together. 

Step by step, we’ll move through the basics of a summer cheese board and how to turn it into a gold medal work of art. The beauty of a cheese board is that there are no set rules! You can make it modest, highlighting a few cheeses served with a baguette, to bountiful with an overflowing board filled with all sorts of sweet and savory tidbits. Your cheese and charcuterie selections are the foundation of the board. Anything else you add is just there for support, so have fun with it!

Build Your Own Board:

STEP ONE: Choose your board. Your board is your canvas and will give you an idea of the space you need to fill, and, therefore, what you need to buy.

STEP TWO: Select cheese and charcuterie. For the cheese on this board, I went with a French theme (clockwise from right): Bleu d’Auvergne, P’tit Basque, Fresh Chevre, and Brie de Meaux. For the charcuterie, I chose just one— Three Little Pigs™ Duck Liver & Pork Mousse.

STEP THREE: Arrange the cheese and charcuterie. There’s no set way to do this—you can keep it as simple or make it as fancy as you’d like!

STEP FOUR: Fill in any gaps using accompaniments. For this board, I chose a variety of fresh fruits, Edmond Fallot Honey & Balsamic Dijon Mustard, Le Chocolat des Français Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts, a DLM French Baguette, and Herbs de Provence Marcona Almonds.