Halloween Charcuterie Board

Make your Halloween celebrations extra special with this spooktacular Halloween charcuterie board. Fill this board with a mix of sweet and savory bites for a fun party appetizer or turn it into a dinner for a cozy night in. This beautiful board can be assembled in 30 minutes or less with ingredients you can pick up from any grocery store.

Turns out, once you publish a cookbook full of entertaining ideas and party recipes, your friends start coming to you for Halloween food ideas.

If I’m hosting or heading to a Halloween party, I’m making a Halloween themed charcuterie board. It’s actually super easy to make a themed board in about 30 minutes — you don’t even need to pick up fancy ingredients! You can easily put this board together using ingredients from Aldi, Trader Joe’s, or your preferred mainstream supermarket.

I like to walk the line between whimsical and elegant on this one, but you could lean more into the spooky or creepy vibe if you want. It’s all about what you like so have fun!

Ingredient notes

One of the most important things about making a charcuterie board is to remember that everything is adjustable. You can easily scale individual components up or down or swap them out entirely based on what your guests will enjoy.

Consider the suggestions below to be guidelines for a well-balanced Halloween board with a variety of flavors and textures, rather than hard-and-fast rules.

cured Meat

I like a mix of salami or soppressata and prosciutto. Both are easy to find at most mainstream grocery stores. Capiocola and bresaola are also great options but are sometimes harder to find.

For a vegetarian board, skip the meat and add 1-2 additional cheeses.

Cheese

When making a Halloween charcuterie board, my favorite cheeses include:

• Brie round: For a seasonal touch, use a knife to cut a ghost shape into the top rind.
• Fresh mozzarella pearls: I like to decorate these with candy eyeballs, similar to my Jalapeño Popper Mummies. You could also use molds to make mozzarella cheese skulls instead.
• Orange cheddar: The orange color adds an extra seasonal pop to the platter.
• Blue cheese: Look for something extra veiny, such as a wedge of Stilton, for that creepy, spooky vibe. If you don’t care for blue cheese, another soft cheese, such as goat cheese, is a great option.

Fruits and vegetables

• Fresh fruit: Again, I like to lean into a Halloween color palette with the fruits. Fresh figs, apples, pears, persimmons, red grapes, blackberries, and pomegranate seeds are all great options.
• Dried fruit: If fresh fruit is hard to find, dried fruit is a great option. I like including a bit of both for different textures. Dried figs and dried apricots both work well.
• Olives: Pimento-stuffed olives have a bit of a creepy eyeball vibe when added to this board.

Spreads

• Jam: Raspberry jam is my favorite here. Apricot jam would work well, too.
• Fruit butter: Apple butter or pumpkin butter are both seasonal spreads that pair well with cheese. You can make homemade apple butter or pumpkin butter, but you can also buy a jar of your favorite brand at the grocery store.

Additional nibbles

Nuts (I like walnuts), caramel corn, and candy corn are my go-to fill-ins for a Halloween-themed charcuterie board. Chocolate is another great option. You’d be surprised how the sweetness pairs with the savory items!

Crackers

These can be as fancy or as basic as you want! Water crackers, butter crackers, wheat

serving tools and decorations

You do not have to buy a bunch of special tools to make a great charcuterie board or cheese board. You can easily use things you already have around the house to assemble this board! Here are a few of the things I suggest having on hand:

• Serving board: A large wooden charcuterie board, a large cutting board, or even a countertop covered with butcher paper.
• Small bowls: For holding the pomegranate seeds, mozzarella pearls, jam, and fruit butter. These do not all have to match!
• Small decorative pumpkins: You can use real mini pumpkins or grab some decorative plastic pumpkins.
• Small seasonal decorations: You can go cute, pretty, or spooky here depending on if you want this to be a kid-friendly board or a creepy Halloween charcuterie board. Plastic skulls and skeleton hands, fake spiders, and bat cupcake toppers all work great.

Optional serving tools

These are nice to have but certainly not required for serving:

• Cheese knives: Make it easier for guests to serve themselves the brie or any other larger portions of cheese.
• Cheese markers: For labeling the types of cheeses and meats.
• Cocktail toothpicks: So guests can easily grab what they’d like from the board.

Make-ahead tips

If you’re hosting a Halloween party, you probably want to get as much of the party prep out of the way ahead of time as possible. Add this board to the list of things you can prep ahead along with my easy apple cider cocktail and pimento cheese deviled eggs.

The day before, slice the meats and slice or crumble the cheeses. Store in separate airtight containers in the refrigerator.

Up to 4 hours before the party, prep the fruits and arrange most of the board. Do not add the nuts, candy corn, or caramel corn yet. Cover the board with plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Just before guests arrive, uncover the board and add the nuts and candied items and any other garnishes.

Storage recommendations

Before keeping any leftovers, keep in mind that two hours at room temperature is the safe window for meats, cheeses, and cut fruits. After that, you run the risk of bacteria and food-borne illness. 

Any of those items that have been out for two or more hours should be discarded. Anything that has been out for less than two hours can be placed in airtight containers in the fridge. If you aren’t sure if something is past the food safety window, throw it out. It’s better to be safe than sorry!

Items like crackers and candies can be stored in zip-top bags at room temperature.