Spooky Halloween Charcuterie Board

Delight your guests this Halloween with a spooky charcuterie board featuring chilling cheese balls molded into a severed hand or an eerie face, alongside an assortment of cheese shapes and cured meats.

Why make a Halloween-themed charcuterie board?

Whether you’re hosting an extravagant Halloween bash or an intimate gathering, a fun charcuterie board can make the perfect centerpiece for your Halloween table. The mix of eerie shapes, creepy cheese balls, and cured meats adds a haunted twist to a traditional favorite.

This board lets you serve a variety of tasty meats and cheeses with fun shapes and themed cutouts. You can adapt the board to suit your theme and the size of your party!

Ingredients

Feel free to customize the ingredients to your liking, but here are my favorite additions to my Halloween charcuterie boards.

Cheese for Molding and Cutting:

• Thick slices of firm cheeses like cheddar, gouda, or provolone for cutting with cookie-cutters
• High fat cheeses (like the above) for molding cheese into 3D shapes.

Creepy Cheese Balls:

While it’s not a mandatory addition to your charcuterie board, a cheese ball makes a great centerpiece for your party platter. You can make any sort of cheese ball you like, but I have a recipe for a real-food seafood cheese ball in my Halloween hand cheese ball post.

My cheese ball uses the following ingredients:

• Cream cheese
• Salted cod (pre-soaked)
• Garlic powder
• Dried onion

To cover the cheese balls and make them creepy, you can use one of the following cured meats:

• Salami or salchichón
• Prosciutto or other cured hams like serrano ham or country ham

See how to make the creepy face cheese ball or how to make the severed hand cheese ball!

Other optional ingredients

To fill in the spaces of the charcuterie board, you can use a variety of meats, fruits, and/or nuts.

• Cured Meats: A selection of prosciutto, salami, chorizo, pepperoni, and other sliced meats and sausages.
• Assorted Crackers and Breadsticks or pretzels. For a carnivore/keto option, add some pork rinds or chicharrones.
• Olives: to make them even spookier, make them into spiders!
• Fruits: Apple slices, grapes, dried apricots, or figs give an autumn feel. Tangerines with pieces of celery can give the look of pumpkins for a fun touch. You can also make banana ghosts for a playful feel.
• Nuts: Almonds, pecans, or walnuts give a different texture and an added crunch. Maple glazed nuts are perfect for autumn.

For larger boards or party tables, you can also add mini pumpkins as decorations. You can even hollow them out to make a dip bowl for serving salsas and other dips like pumpkin spice dip, or pumpkin butter.

Add playful touches by making foods look like silly monsters or other Halloween creatures. You could also wrap breadsticks and sausages to look like little mummies. For more ideas, see my post about fun Halloween food ideas.

How to make it

There are several ways to put together a fun Halloween charcuterie board. My favorite way is to make a fun, Halloween-themed cheese ball surrounded by shaped cheeses and cured meats. for larger gatherings, though, you can add a more elaborate spread with fun-themed canapes and mini pizzas like the ones pictured above.

Step 1: Make the creepy cheese ball

• Mix the cheese base: Combine the softened cream cheese, shredded salted cod, garlic powder, and onion powder in a bowl. (Or use your recipe of choice!)
• Shape the hand or face: Mold the cheese mixture into the shape of a hand or a face on plastic wrap or parchment paper.
• Wrap in meat: Cover the cheese with overlapping slices of salami or prosciutto.
• Chill: Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the shape to set.

For a less eerie cheese ball, shape the cheese into a pumpkin shape and cover it with shredded cheddar. Make a stem with a celery stick or whatever green you have on-hand.

Step 2: Cut and mold cheese shapes

• Use cookie cutters: Cut a thick slice of firm cheese (like cheddar or gouda) and press Halloween-themed cookie cutters (pumpkins, bats, ghosts) into the cheese to create festive shapes. Arrange these on the board. Read my post on cutting cheese shapes for more tips!
• Mold soft cheeses: You can also melt cheese and mold it in candy molds for 3D shapes for an extra spooky touch. Read my post about how to mold cheese here.

Step 4: Arrange the charcuterie board

• Choose your base: Start with a large wooden board or platter
• Place the cheese balls: Position the cheese ball in focal points on the board.
• Add cured meats: Spread out an assortment of cured meats around the cheese balls. For larger slices of cured meats, you can cut them into thin slices and roll them up.
• Place cheese shapes: Arrange the cookie-cutter cheese shapes and molded cheeses throughout the board, interspersing them with meats and crackers.
• Add crackers, fruit, and nuts: Fill in any gaps with crackers, breadsticks, fruit, and nuts to create a full board.
• Final touches: Scatter a few black olives or dried fruits around the board for color and texture.

Expert tips:

• Use a Variety of Cheeses: For the best flavor experience, include a mix of soft, semi-soft, and hard cheeses. Also, include a variety of milder and stronger cheeses and different colored cheeses. This gives guests different textures and tastes while making the board more visually impactful.
• Get Creative with Meat Placement: Wrap the meats around the cheeses or fold them in different ways so they fit without overwhelming the board visually.
• Don’t Overcrowd: Leave some space between the elements to let each spooky creation stand out.
• Serve at the Right Temperature: For the best flavor, let the cheese balls sit at room temperature for around 10–15 minutes before serving, but don’t leave them out too long.

Why your guests will love it:

The spooky cheese balls capture people’s attention, and the rest of the board offers a variety of flavors. That helps ensure that everyone can find something they like. With a variety of shapes, textures, and flavors, the board can be fun and playful, and delicious.

By making it yourself, you can choose your ingredients based on your guests preferences. You can also make it as elaborate or as simple as you like for the number of people you’ll serve.

Have fun & Happy Halloween!

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