“Charcuterie board!”
My husband laughed at me all through the holidays because I would use the word “Charcuterie” whenever I had a chance. It became the word of the day on New Year’s Eve.
We had Christmas with my immediate family on New Year’s Eve this year. Unfortunately, we had to cut out seeing any extended family due to COVID, as I am sure many of you did. The children that we celebrated with were my daughter, son, and 2 nieces.
I had a desire to make a fun appetizer everyone would enjoy, including the younger kids and the picky eaters. While I would have loved to include caviar and frog’s legs (kidding!), I decided it was a great idea to buy foods the whole family would eat.
My sister-in-law was making chicken wing dip and shrimp. Yum! So, I started making my list of foods to include in my kids Charcuterie Board.
What I found was a huge list… massive list… of items I thought everyone would eat. I ended up cutting it back since there would only be a few of us eating the food and the grocery store bill was slowly creeping up to an unreasonable number.
I decided a great way to do this was to break this list up into categories so I would not have a cheese board or a platter of meats. It worked out great!
Check out how I created a traditional charcuterie board for kids and the fun way you can create your own snack board for special occasions.
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What Categories Should I Include to Make a Good Charcuterie Board?
You can include any finger foods you think your family and friends would eat. I knew mine would eat deli meat, cheese slices, crackers, nuts, vegetables, fresh fruit, and dips.
Some people like to make a more specific smaller boards, like a cheese only board or fruit only board. I thought using a few foods from each category would give the group a great option and allow the children an easy way to try different things.
My picky eater daughter tried foods from every category, although she would have just eaten the cheese if I allowed her to.
What Foods Did I Include?
Now we are getting to the best part!
I wanted a beautiful toddler-friendly charcuterie board with pops of color, full of delicious options and plenty of flavors.
Meat:
My daughter is sensitive to Salami and Pepperoni and gets extremely sick every time she eats it. I tend to just avoid purchasing these items because she would want to eat them, and I do not want to be mean eating something in front of her that she cannot have.
I opted for Honey Turkey and Ham Cold Cuts, but you could choose any cold meats you want.
If you are looking for a kid-friendly hot food items, you could add chicken nuggets to your easy charcuterie board.
Cheese:
There are so many great Cheese options to choose from, it’s hard to narrow them down.
I prefer Extra Sharp, but I could only find Sharp Cheese in the store. They are both delicious and easy for little hands if you cut them into cheddar cheese cubes.
My daughter loves Colby Jack Cheese so I knew this would be a popular cheese. You can also purchase Colby Jack string cheese, which is the perfect way for children to eat cheese.
Cranberry Goat Cheese is one of my favorite cheeses. This may not seem kid-friendly, but the cranberries make this cheese so sweet, and it is great on a cracker.
Cottage Cheese is a hit or miss food. I personally love cottage cheese and so does my mom, so I knew we would eat it all.
Crackers:
You’ll want to give yourself a wider variety of crackers to go with the different tastes. I tried to go with crackers that were the opposite of each other, but you should use your judgment to see what would go best with the foods you chose.
I decided to go with two different kinds of crackers, which included Club Butter Crackers and Wheat Thins. They worked out great!
A few other cracker options include animal crackers and graham crackers, which are great kid-friendly snack foods.
Nuts:
Before the day came, I text the group to ask if anyone had a nut allergy. This was months before we found out about my son's severe peanut allergy. Since we did not know of any allergies at the time, I picked out Sweet Cashews. I only went with the one type of nut, and I sprinkled them all over the board. It really added texture to the board.
Another option in place of plain nuts is to add trail mix on the board.
If you have nut allergies in your family, a cute idea is to add caramel popcorn or mini marshmallows that could be sprinkled around the board.
Vegetables:
The options are endless when you are picking out vegetables to use. To add some color, I went with Carrots, Celery, and Cucumbers. You could go with only green vegetables or add even more colors with red and yellow peppers or cherry tomatoes.
The baby carrots worked best for this board because little fingers could easily hold the little bites and dip them into dip. I thought this would work out with the celery as well. I went with larger cucumber slices to make it easier for the children to hold. I thought these vegetables were the best kid-friendly options.
Seasonal Fruits:
I really tried to add some colorful options when it came to the fruit, which can help with anyone sweet tooth.
I made sure to go with seedless red Grapes because I did not want to worry about the kids biting into seeds.
Not only do I love eating Blueberries, but they are such a pretty color, and I knew they would look great.
I decided to go with Apple slices that I cut up myself. It made it quite easy for everyone to just grab a slice.
Some other great colorful fruit options are watermelon slices, pineapples, and mandarin oranges.
Dips:
French Onion Dip can be used for pretty much any foods. I will dip my cheese, crackers, meat, and vegetables in it, so I thought it would be the best option so I wouldn’t have to buy too many different kinds.
The Cream Cheese Fruit Dip and Caramel Dip were for the fruit and were two different flavors to satisfy everyone.
If you're looking for even more dips for your sweet treats, you could do a bowl of peanut butter or chocolate.
How Did I Keep Double Dippers Away?
Presentation is Key!
I hate double dipping and I hate when people touch everything on the platter before they decide what they want. I also know that adults do this more often than children do. To prevent dipping directly into the dips, I included tiny spoons that I received as a present many years ago. I also only put a small amount of dip into mini glass bowls so the rest of the dip could stay in the refrigerator until we needed more.
It was such a pretty good quality board that it just drew you in to eat the healthy snacks from it. So, having the fun foods sliced to the perfect finger food size allowed you to dip once and move on to different yummy foods.
What Should I Put My Foods On?
You can use any platter or cute wooden boards you have laying around your house or you could purchase something new. My mom has a really pretty Christmas platter that I decided to use, but any fun shapes or sizes would work.
Amazon has these beautiful platters that you could use, and you have the option to organize your foods anyway you wish on your appetizer boards.
If you love the idea of using a cutting board to organize your themed charcuterie boards, you could grab one of these wooden boards off Amazon.
If you want to put only a little bit of dip out at a time like I did, I suggest getting small bowls to serve it in. I really love my porcelain small ramekins dessert bowls because they can be used for so many different things. Amazon sells some great small ramekins for your easy kid-friendly charcuterie board.
Add in some of these mini spoons to serve the dips, and you are all set!
What is the Best Way to Organize the Foods?
I will be honest; I did not plan how I would organize my board ahead of time. I had all my kid-friendly foods cut up and I just set them on the board so that everything would fit. I tried not to put the vegetables together or the fruits together or the cheese together. I really wanted to separate everything to give the board dimension, but there is no wrong way to organize your board.
The very last item I added was sprinkling the cashews around in the empty spaces. I thought this would fill in all the spaces and utilize every inch of the board.
There you have it!
A mom’s take on how to organize your favorite snacks to make a Kid-Friendly Charcuterie Board.
Did I have to make it kid-friendly? No, but I wanted the children to feel included in the New Year’s festivities with a variety of snacks.
These were just some ideas to make your Kid-Friendly Charcuterie Board for your next movie night, birthday party, or afternoon snack.
Have you ever made a Kid-Friendly Charcuterie Board or other Appetizer?
Do you have any kid-friendly charcuterie board ideas?
Feel free to comment below!
