Nothing Says Love Like a Cheeseboard (it’s true!)

Check out that salami river, baby! (This was one of my first boards after interviewing Marissa.)

As promised in my instagram tutorial, below is a step-by-step guide to making a jaw-dropping cheese board, adapted from The Little Book of Life Skills! The tips come from Marissa Mullen, a cheeseboard influencer (yup, that’s a thing!) and creator of the @thatcheeseplate and the @cheesebynumbers method. Is anyone else obsessed with looking at cheeseboards on instagram? I am so guilty. Marissa’s pages do not disappoint.

You can create a cheeseboard for one, 2, 10, 100 (maybe not 100 these days but someday soon?) by following Marissa’s “cheese by numbers” method: take any ingredients you have on hand and make them look beautiful by walking through the steps in order: 1. Cheese 2. Meat 3. Produce 4. Crunch 5. Dips 6. Garnish.

Here’s how:

1. Place the cheeses on the board—aim for a variety of milks (sheeps, goat, cow), or a variety of textures (soft, hard, fresh)—then add your ramekins (which you’ll fill with dips later).

2. To arrange the meats, fold salami in quarters, slice hard sausages and tear prosciutto into smaller pieces and lay in neat lines near the cheeses. You can also attempt a salami river—it’s in the tutorial I did and written up below and it’s WORTH IT.

3. Add produce (carrots, cucumber, berries, dried fruits, even those cute pickles called cornichons) by placing them in “produce ponds” or piles in various areas of the board. Use a ramekin for anything in a brine or liquid.

4. Place the crunch—crackers, toasts, nuts, chips, pretzels. Fill in the gaps where the cheese and meat aren’t touching with piles of nuts or fanned-out crackers. (Always do a backup plate of crackers on the side.)

5. Fill the empty ramekins with whatever dips you have planned—fig jam, honey, compote, hummus.  

6. Finish with a garnish—sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary, lavender, even edible flowers.

ABOUT THE ORDER: Cheese is first and then you build around your biggest items. Pre-cut your harder cheeses to make grazing and grabbing easier (no one wants to fumble with one of those tiny cheese knives). You want everything accessible, which is the same reason you fold the meats. The produce step is where you fill in the color so go for a variety of fruits and vegetables—the garnish adds a final pop of color and makes the whole thing feel more artistic than a basic appetizer (make no mistake, a good cheese board IS art). You can make a cheese plate ahead of time just cover in plastic wrap and store in the fridge (remove crunchy items so they don’t get soggy). Bring the board out an hour before serving so the cheeses can come to room temperature, where their flavors are fullest. 

SALAMI RIVERS: Marissa coined the term salami river to describe her style of winding stacks of folded meat around the cheese plate into an interesting and beautiful pattern; it’s a genius way to add texture and movement to the plate. Use pre-sliced pre-packed salami and fold the slice in quarters. Stack the sections of salami in between your thumb and index finger as you fold them and add a little bit of pressure. Once you have about five or six pieces, place them on the board and then continue to add to it, creating a line across the plate. Once you’re finished, create the flow shape by pushing the line into a curve or two (the more you do it the easier it is and you can do it with any type of meat).