Vegan Charcuterie Board
Cook together. Eat together.
We’re back together! (Six feet apart.)
Kitchen chats between Lee and Rebel: Second in a Series
Our hope with these kitchen chats is for you to experience what it would be like to be a fly on the wall in our kitchen as we talk to one another about the food we make.
Rebel: How should we start this?
Lee: (Silence…eating lunch.) Do we want a sentence or two of intro, or do we just dive in?
Rebel: Let’s just dive in.
Lee: (More thinking.) Let’s start with saying something about how great it felt to be together.
Rebel: This was our first cooking day together in, gosh, like years.
Lee: Haha, months but yeah.
Rebel: What did you enjoy about it?
Lee: Well…I mean…how sappy do you want to get? Don’t type that.
Rebel: I’m typing everything. You are really going to enjoy it. Uhh, sappy. Well I enjoyed being outside, taking photos, eating food, and feeling normal.
Lee: Almost normal. It was hot in the kitchen with our masks on.
Rebel: Hot but worth it.
Lee: I love to get back to our Fridays hanging out, our conversations wandering all over the place and then tackling a recipe together.
Rebel: She means metaphorically.
Lee: Now you are editing me, haha.
Rebel: I enjoyed the day as well.
Lee: We had been wanting to do this charcuterie board for a long time, but it really needed to be in person.
Rebel: Right, you wouldn’t want to make a charcuterie for one just because there are so many items and it can get pricey. Plus it’s just a lot of food.
Lee: Although we did talk about how if you had a small gathering right now you could make individual plates and serve them. That could be really eye-catching and a nice surprise for people to have. You know, doing a charcuterie board really reminds me of the way we make a great team together.
Rebel: Is this a convo about the recipe or a love letter?
Lee: Haha, after our quick planning meeting earlier in the week, I had fun selecting and shopping for items. We both got them all prepared and had little dishes. Then I stepped back and watched you with your creative eye lay it all out. Super fun for me.
Rebel: Yes, I did enjoy the dynamic and getting to be creative. Plus the food was so good.
Taste Test Kitchen
We’ve been sharing Instagram and Pinterest charcuterie board images with one another for a couple of years, looking at the beautiful way that people put them together. So appetizing. But like many of our recipes, we wanted to find a way to build a board with plant-based cheeses. Then we just decided to go full vegan, no meats.
Thankfully, there are more products all the time that replace animal milk cheese. We’ve tried many and found a few we truly enjoy – soon we’ll do a post comparing some of these products.
To build a charcuterie board, you’ll want sweet and salty, smoky and tangy, a variety of textures, and a range of colors and shapes to please the eye. Next, find some small dishes and a large board for the base. We ended up placing two boards together because we don’t have a board that big!
Relax and get creative. Get fancy or make it simple. Make it authentically you. There are no rules but we suggest laying out the different foods in lines and rows that overflow others and move in directions that draw the eye.
Charcuterie Haiku by Rebel
Fruit, cheese, and veggies
Vegan charcuterie board.
You can thank us later.
Vegan Charcuterie Board
Ingredients:
- Meat substitutes like tempeh or tofu. Dips like hummus and baba ghanoush (eggplant).
- Plant based cheeses and cheese spreads. Look for variety in the main ingredients of these products, such as some cashew based, some almond based, etc.
- Italian style crackers, sliced baguette and olive bread.
- Cut for dipping: celery, radishes, cucumbers, cauliflower and cherry tomatoes. We also considered jimaca.
- Black seedless grapes, strawberries, figs and blackberries.
- Almonds plus a kalamata and green olive assortment. Pistachios would be good.
- Jam or honey on top of a cracker and cheese is amazing. We used a less-fruity prickly pear jam because we had so much ripe, summer fruit on the board.
- Pick something that will compliment your board and the season, like the fresh mint we used, or parsley or thyme.
Instructions:
- First, wash and thoroughly dry the fruits and vegetables before cutting into serving pieces.
- Fry or heat the tempeh and tofu according to the package directions.
- Serve up items that need a small bowl or dish.
- The last thing is to bring the nondairy cheeses out of the refrigerator and prep those.
- Get creative - fancy or simple. Arrange the different foods in lines, rows that overflow others and move in directions that draw the eye.
