If you like charcuterie, we have a great list of unique charcuterie boards.

There are seasonal ideas like a Valentine’s Day breakfast charcuterie board and non-seasonal boards, like a cookie charcuterie board.

Candy Cane-Shaped Charcuterie Board Recipe

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Candy Cane Charcuterie Board Ingredients:

You can get the full list of ingredients with measurements in the recipe card below.

• Cheese – You want four different white cheeses to make this candy cane. We use Gouda, white cheddar, and pepper jack blocks, plus mozzarella pearls. You can use any combination of white cheeses that you prefer.
• Meats – Any red charcuterie meat works. We use soppressata salami, calabrese salami, and prosciutto. You could also use pepperoni or genoa salami.
• Sun-dried tomatoes – These go so well with the cheese and add a great red row.
• Kalamata olives – These olives are black, but red-ish, so they work.
• Grape tomatoes – These are red, but really they’re just used to create the border around your candy cane so your guests understand the shape you’re going for.
• Crackers – We used Club crackers and Milton’s crackers to fill in the space of the board. You can use whatever white crackers you prefer.
• Christmas chocolate – I originally wanted to put Mini candy canes in a bowl to really hammer home The candy cane theme, but nobody really wants to eat that. So, my mom suggested Christmas chocolate and that was a big hit.

How To Make A Candy Cane-Shaped Charcuterie Board:

The first thing you want to do is choose your board. This is easiest with a rectangular-shaped board.

Place a sheet of parchment paper on top of your board and draw out a candy cane, making sure it goes all the way to the edges of the board.

Cut that candy cane out of the parchment paper.

If you want to make sure you don’t have any pencil marks, you can lay that candy cane down on another piece of parchment paper and use it as a template to cut out a second candy cane to use for the board.

That’s what we do to assure that everything is food safe.

If you think you can eyeball it, you don’t even need to make a candy cane template. I personally thought I could eyeball it because I do make a lot of charcuterie boards, but it was so helpful to use the template.

Lay the template down on the board.

Cut the cheese into large cubes.

Lay the cheese cubes into three distinct sections around your candy cane template.

You want to leave a little bit of a border between the edge of the template and where you lay the cheese.

Open the mozzarella pearls and pat them dry.

Mozzarella pearls are pretty watery since they sit in liquid in the packaging. If you don’t pat them dry, they’ll leave a wet spot on your charcuterie board while it sits.

Lay the mozzarella pearls onto your candy cane template.

We have four white rows and five red rows in this board, so keep that in mind when you’re spacing your cheese. The board will start and end with red foods.

If you’re copying our ingredients exactly, you have three meats and two non-meats that are red. So, you can alternate them in the gaps as meat, sun-dried tomatoes, meat, olives, meat.

You don’t have to do it this way, but, in my opinion, it looks best this way.

As I always say, though, my recipe is a template and once you read it, it becomes to your recipe. So do whatever you feel is best.

If you want to make the meat look like ours, you want to fold it in half twice before putting it on the charcuterie board.

That gives the meat a little height so it doesn’t just sit flat on your board, making it more interesting to look at.

If you’re using olives, just like the mozzarella pearls, you want to pat them dry before adding them to your board.

Olives sit in a liquid in the jar and you don’t want that liquid to transfer to your charcuterie board.

Slice the cherry tomatoes in half long ways.

Place them around the edge of the candy cane template to create a border.

You may need to push some of the ingredients closer to the middle of the candy cane to create the border.

When the border is complete, fill in any gaps in the meat and cheese sections.

Filling in these gaps makes the charcuterie board look full and complete.

Place a row of Club crackers between the curved edge of the candy cane, and the edge of your charcuterie board.

I lay this in a wave because it looks fancier than a straight, harsh line.

But, again, this is your charcuterie board, so add the crackers however you feel looks best.

Use the Milton’s crackers to fill in the gaps on both sides of the Club crackers.

Pick up a few of the Club crackers to create a space.

Put a small bowl in that space.

Filled that bowl with Christmas chocolates.

That’s it. The charcuterie board is done.

Candy Cane-Shaped Charcuterie Board: Frequently Asked Questions