If you are looking for romantic dinner ideas at home and wish to put together a fancy charcuterie board for your partner then I have you covered on this. This romantic ‘date-night’ special grazing board with salami roses will leave your partner gasping for breath. This easy snack platter is not just perfect for your valentine’s day date night, but for any other special weekend, you plan to spend with your love!
In this post, I have listed out simple things that you can use to put together a gorgeous date night party food grazing platter, along with a video on how to make a salami rose for your charcuterie board. Plus a list of different kinds of grazing boards that you can put together for your friends and family on separate occasions.
How to put together a Charcuterie Board like a pro?
Grazing Boards are a rage these days. Assembling a grazing board or charcuterie board might sound like a daunting job, but honestly, with just a couple of points in mind, you can put together the perfect party food platter to make everybody go wow!
The main goal of a Charcuterie Board is to offer an array of flavours, textures and colours through various elements of food such as meat, cheese, fruits, fresh fruits & vegetables, pickles and bread or crackers.
Contrary to popular belief, putting together such snack platters doesn’t mean breaking the bank. You can use pantry staple ingredients to put together an interesting yet unique charcuterie board. All it needs is some quick thinking and a little bit of creativity to assemble a charcuterie board like a pro.
Here are a couple of pointers to help you get started on your party snacks grazing board:
- Cheese – One of the most important elements of a perfectly articulated grazing board is an assortment of cheese. You can offer different types of cheese here as per their texture. For hardcheese, you can keep some cheddar or gouda. For soft cheese, you can go for brie, camembert or even fresh goat cheese.
- Meat – The most essential component of a charcuterie board is the sellection of deli meat. Most common ones are salami and ham. But you can also improvise and add your own twist to it by including meat based snacks and appetizers as a part of your party food platter such as Chicken Sliders, Lamb Meat Burgers, Herb & Butter Sauteed Sausages, Sticky & Crispy Chicken Stir-fry, etc.
- Olives & Pickles – This includes jarred and preserved antipasto such as olives, sundried tomato, gherkins, etc.
- Dips & Chutneys – You can whip up easy dips like Sour Cream Dip or Spicy Mayo Dip to with your platter. You can also use ready-to-use store-bought dips if you are running short on time. Don’t forget to keep some vegan dips in options for your vegan friends.
- Fresh Fruits – Some of the popular fruits are Grapes, Apples, Pears, Strawberry, Figs, Apricots, etc. For summers, you can also include cubed or scooped out balls of summer fruits like watermelon, melons, kiwi, dragonfruit, Pineapples, etc.
- Dry Fruits – Adding Walnuts, Almonds, Pistachios, Hazelnuts , etc. is always a good idea
- Bread & Crackers
- Fresh Vegetables – Cucumbers, Onions, Cherry Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Carrots, Lettuce, Celery, etc.
- Hard Boiled Eggs
- Meatless Options – When you are designing or planning for your Party Grazing Board, you must keep a couple of meatless protein options for those of your friends who do not prefer meat. Here, Paneer comes very handy. You can make Paneer Tikkas or Paneer Seekh Kebabs for them. For vegans, you can substitute Paneer with Tofu. You can also add Falafels or veggie kebabs to add more variety to meatless options.
Cutlery Required for this Grazing Platter
- Board – First thing first, you need a big wooden board or platter on which you can start arranging your food. If you do not have one, you can use any flat tray, even a low rimmed baking tray
- Cheese Knives & Spreaders – To help you cut through diffreent types of cheeses
- Spoons & Forks
- Spare Quarter Plates – For if someone wishes to pick up a couple of items at a time and eat it off another plate
- Bowls
- Wine Glasses
- Cork Screw
- Tongs
- Napkins
These are some of the handy tips for you to get going with planning your party snacks platter like a pro. Now, if you want to take your charcuterie board up by few notches, then you can roll up the deli meat like salamis into salami roses using a wine glass. Here’s how.
How to make a Salami Rose using a wine glass
- Let your salami thaw completely so that it becomes soft and malleable
- Take a narrow rimmed glass like a wine glass or even a champagne flute. Now, take a salami and place it halfway on the rim of the glass. Press gently so that it falls along the curve. Now overlapping half of it, place another salami and repeat.
- Create 2-3 layers of salamis or untill the centre is tightly packed.
- Turn this glass over your board and take the glass out from the formed rose. Tuck it in tight so that it doesn’t unfurl. Use some of the food from the board around to give these roses a support so that it holds it’s shape
- Repeat these steps to make a couple of more roses for your board
You will find a quick video demonstration of how to make a salami rose with glass below in the recipe card. Plus you can also see how I assembled this simple date night charcuterie board for two. Here’s what I used in this party snack grazing platter.
How to put together a simple ‘Date-Night’ Grazing Platter – Ingredients list
- Pork Pepperoni
- Chicken Bell Pepper Lyoner
- Cheddar Slices
- Multi-Grain Crackers
- Pitted Olives
- Sour Cream Dip
- Gherkins
- Little Heart Biscuits
- White Wine
Few more DIY Charcuterie Board Ideas
Party Snacks Grazing Board
As you can see you can play around with your ingredients to come up with an interesting combination of flavours and textures for your grazing board. Here, I have included a number of options for people who have various food preferences. Here’s a quick list of what’s on this glazing platter –
- Chicken Tikka Kebabs
- Paneer Tikka Kebabs
- Chicken Slider Burgers
- Sausage Stir-fry
- Cheddar
- Bocconcini
- Sour Creme Dip
- Hot & Sweet Sauce
- Gherkins
- Olives
- Sliced Red Paprika
- Lettuce
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Baby Onions
- Lemon
Valentine’s Day Special Romantic Cookie Board
I made this Cookie Platter with various shortbread cookies. It was so much fun to create different shapes and varieties of cookies by using the same shortbread cookie dough. You can also find the XO Gift Tag Cookie recipe on my Blog.
Indian Monsoon Special Pakora Platter or Fritter Grazing Board
This is an Indian snacks inspired Pakora platter where I brought together a variety of Indian fritter recipes such as Onion Pakoras, Paneer Pakoras, Cauliflower Fritters, Methi Pakoras, Potato Fritters and Bell Pepper Fritters.
Christmas Dessert Grazing Board
One of my personal favourites is this Christmas special dessert grazing board which included some of my favourites such as Fudgy Dark Chocolate Brownies, Cranberry & Orange Biscottis, Chocolate Biscottis, Gingerbread Cookies, Christmas Rum-soaked Plum Cake, Thumbprint Cookies & Enchanted Forest 3-D Cookie.
Have you tried this recipe? I would love to hear about it.
Tag me on Instagram @priyankabhattacharya.sa or Facebook @hashdiaries and I will share it further.
If you are looking for romantic dinner ideas at home and wish to put together a fancy charcuterie board for your partner then I have you covered on this. This romantic 'date-night' special grazing board with salami roses will leave your partner gasping for breath. This easy snack platter is not just perfect for your valentine's day date night, but for any other special weekend, you plan to spend with your love!
- Pork Pepperoni
- Chicken Bell Pepper Lyoner
- Cheddar Slices
- Multi-Grain Crackers
- Pitted Olives
- Sour Cream Dip
- Gherkins
- Little Heart Biscuits
- White Wine
- Let your salami thaw completely so that it becomes soft and malleable
- Take a narrow rimmed glass like a wine glass or even a champagne flute. Now, take a salami and place it halfway on the rim of the glass. Press gently so that it falls along the curve. Now overlapping half of it, place another salami and repeat.
- Create 2-3 layers of salamis or untill the centre is tightly packed.
- Turn this glass over your board and take the glass out from the formed rose. Tuck it in tight so that it doesn’t unfurl. Use some of the food from the board around to give these roses a support so that it holds it’s shape
- Repeat these steps to make a couple of more roses for your board
Place the bowls of dips and gherkins & olives on the platter
Now place the rest of the ingredients around them.
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