This Valentine’s Day charcuterie board is a fun and creative way to display an array of tastes, textures, and colors with a combination of chocolates with savory cheeses, cured meats, and fruit!
Don’t miss all my best charcuterie board ideas!
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Table of Contents
- Why You’ll Love to Make a Valentine’s Day Charcuterie Board
- Recipe Ingredients
- Tools You’ll Need
- Variations
- How to Make a Valentine’s Charcuterie Board
- Expert Tips
- Recipe FAQs
- More Valentine’s Day Desserts
- Valentine’s Day Charcuterie Board Printable Recipe
Why You’ll Love to Make a Valentine’s Day Charcuterie Board
- Fun and festive. Part of what makes platters so special is that you can arrange them depending on what the theme is. Pink and red candy for Valentine’s day, black and orange for Halloween, or red and green for Christmas.
- Something for everyone. You can customize your Valentine’s charcuterie board to make it exactly how you want it. All sweet, all savory, or a combination of both.
- Versatile. It has enough on the platter for more than one person, so it can be a great shareable appetizer with a little something on it for everyone or a romantic date night or picnic for two.
Recipe Ingredients
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- Mixed nuts: These can be unsalted, salted, or even candied nuts if you like.
- Valentine’s M&Ms: Red and pink, of course!
- Cinnamon heart candies: These are quite spicy and when eaten in handfuls tend to burn one’s tongue. So, just be careful around the kiddies.
- Brach’s Conversation Hearts: These are always fun! They’ve got little positive words on each little heart.
- Cheese: I love to have a combination of cheeses. Manchego cheese slices from Trader Joe’s are my favorite. You can use a variety of hard cheeses you prefer.
- Meat: Salami and prosciutto-wrapped cheese sticks.
- Fruit: Small red grapes and strawberries sliced in half. For the chocolate lovers, here are some tips for making easy chocolate covered strawberries.
- Fig & Olive crackers: Also from Trader Joe’s but you can use your favorite.
- Valentine’s Hershey’s Kisses: These are the same as your everyday kisses, except the wrapper is either red or pink. Super cute!
- Chocolate truffles: Find ones wrapped in red foil. This is a Valentine’s day dessert board after all. I love making homemade chocolate truffles. They’re so easy but look like you’ve got the extra mile!
- Chocolate covered pretzels: For a sweet, salty, and crunchy element.
- A nice wooden board is always rustic and fun.
- Heart shaped is even better!
- 1 medium bowl, 2 small bowls
- Tongs for serving and picking up items
- Toothpicks and napkins
- Small spoons for any dips
Variations
The variety displayed on a Valentine’s Day charcuterie board makes it so easy to customize it! Here are just a few swaps you can make and still keep up with the love theme!
Fruit: Try apples, dried apple chips, orange slices, grapes, cherries, raspberries, and figs. Brighten it up with some fresh pineapple, or for a pop of dark purple go with blackberries. Serve them with a fruit dip for extra yum!
Meat: Instead of wrapping cheese in salami you can use the meat to make salami roses. Or add your favorite deli meats like ham, pepperoni, capicola, etc.
Cheese: Add different cheeses like brie for soft cheese, or more hard ones like blue cheese, cheddar, Havarti, Gouda, or Swiss. Place some olives or dried fruit like raisins or cranberries in a bowl.
Dips: Toffee caramel dip, pumpkin cheesecake dip, funfetti dip, chocolate sauce, or caramel sauce.
Nuts: Mixed nuts, almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, and pistachios, are always great. Salted, unsalted, candy-coated, toasted, you name it!
Bread and crackers: Any bread or crackers you like to eat with your cheese. Some popular choices are rye bread, sourdough, baguette slices, or focaccia.
Fun extras: Heart-shaped candy and cookies are always a hit. Don’t forget to leave room for Valentine’s Day desserts, like donuts, Valentine’s Day cookies, Valentine cake pops, Valentine empire biscuits, and more!
How to Make a Valentine’s Charcuterie Board
- Prepare the board. Grab your beautiful board and make sure it’s wiped clean and dry.
- Arrange the bowls. Place a medium bowl in the center of the board and two smaller bowls on either side in the corners.
- Combine nuts and M&Ms. In the medium bowl, combine the mixed nuts and M&Ms. Try not to eat any.
- Fill the little bowls with candy. Add the cinnamon hearts to one of the small bowls and the conversation hearts to the other.
- Add the rest of the goodies. Fill in the remaining spaces with the remainder of the ingredients. Get a little fancy by wrapping salami around the apple slices or prosciutto around the figs. Try not to have any open spots! Add as many kisses, truffles, and pretzels as your board will allow.
- Serve. Once assembled, serve your Valentine’s Day charcuterie board immediately and dig in!
Expert Tips
- All the heart shapes. For effect, use a heart-shaped board if you can. If you have heart-shaped cookie cutters it might be fun to cut out some cheese slices into hearts!
- Wash fruit. Remember to wash and dry all your fresh fruit. Hull the strawberries.
- To prevent the apples from browning, squirt a little lemon juice on them.
- Keep the meat and cheese in the fridge until just before assembly.
Recipe FAQs
What do you put on a Valentine’s charcuterie board?
While I like to add tons of heart-shaped candies and chocolates, a combination of sweet and savory, different textures, similar colors, etc., there really are no rules! Use what you know your loved one(s) like to eat, get creative, and make it from the heart. It’s always the thought that counts!
How do you make a Valentine’s Day charcuterie board as a gift?
This will depend on when the recipient decides to eat it. If you are bringing it as a gift for a party host who plans to serve it that night, that gives you a little more flexibility on what to bring (ie. meat, cheese, fresh fruit).
If you aren’t sure but still want to add meat, cheese, and fruit, let them know it’s best eaten within a day or so.
Arrange everything on a platter and cover it with plastic wrap. To make it a little more presentable, you can wrap it in cellophane and tie it with a red or pink ribbon.
How long can I keep this Valentine’s charcuterie out?
It’s best served immediately. However, once you’ve presented it and people are nibbling and sampling, it can be left out for about 2 hours. No longer than that, just because of the meat and dairy.
Can I make it ahead of time?
You can, however since it’s so easy to make, there’s almost no need! However, if you do want to save yourself some time, make it up to a couple of hours before and keep it wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the fridge.
If you can, wait to add any fruit that tends to brown, until later on.
What is a Charcuterie Board?
If you’re a stickler for the rules, a charcuterie board is traditionally cured meats, fine cheeses, nuts, and crackers served on a platter or wooden board.
You can find everything from a beautiful board displayed with fresh fruit and sweet treats to a snack board with meat, cheese, crackers, and jam. I’ve even made a hot chocolate charcuterie board!
More charcuterie boards you’ll love include pancake charcuterie board, this Christmas dessert board and s’mores charcuterie board!
More Valentine’s Day Desserts
Browse all- Valentine Chex Mix
- Pink Velvet Cupcakes
- Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies
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Valentine’s Day Charcuterie Board
5 from 6 votes
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Author: Jamielyn Nye
Celebrate love today and every day with a Valentine's Day charcuterie board! It's a fun and creative way to display an array of tastes, textures, and colors with a combination of chocolates with savory cheeses, cured meats, and fruit!
Prep Time: 15 minutes mins
Total Time: 15 minutes mins
Servings: 6
Video
Equipment
Heart-shaped cutting board , optional
Ingredients
- 1 cup mixed nuts
- ¼ cup Valentine's M&Ms
- ½ cup cinnamon heart candies
- ½ cup Brach's Conversation Hearts
- 8 Manchego cheese slices (I like Trader Joe's), or other hard cheese
- 10 salami slices
- 6 prosciutto-wrapped cheese sticks
- 1 small bunch red grapes , plus more if desired
- 8 strawberries , sliced in half vertically, plus more if desired
- 1 cup Fig & Olive crackers (I like Trader Joe's)
- 12 Valentine's Hershey's Kisses , plus more if desired (optional)
- 6 chocolate truffles (wrapped in red foil), plus more if desired (optional)
- 12 chocolate covered pretzels , or other heart-shaped chocolate treat (optional)
Instructions
On a heart-shaped (or any shape) cutting board, place 1 medium bowl and 2 small bowls. In the medium bowl, mix together the mixed nuts and M&Ms. Add the cinnamon hearts to a small bowl and the Conversation Hearts to the other small bowl.
Arrange the salami, cheese, cheese sticks, grapes, strawberries, and crackers around the bowls. Fill in any remaining areas with Kisses, truffles, and pretzels.
Serve immediately.
Notes
Variations:
This board is easy to make sweet or savory. Feel free to swap in your favorites.
- Chocolate:Any type will do! I like to find ones that are wrapped in red or pink.
- Cookies:Heart-shaped cookies are always a hit.
- Fruit – Fresh apple slices, or dried apple chips, orange slices, grapes, or figs.
- Cheeses – Slices of cheddar, blue cheese, Swiss, Havarti, or gouda can be used.
- Bread and crackers– Whatever type you like and that works with the cheese will work.
- Nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, pistachios etc. Mixed candied nuts are always a great idea.
- Meats – Feel free to add your favorite cured meats like prosciutto, ham, pepperoni, etc.
Nutrition
Calories: 349kcal | Carbohydrates: 34g | Protein: 10g | Fat: 20g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 18mg | Sodium: 604mg | Potassium: 237mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 291IU | Vitamin C: 11mg | Calcium: 106mg | Iron: 2mg
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Course: Appetizer
Cuisine: American
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