Recipes, guides and kitchen know-how. Mostly useful, occasionally silly.
Cheese Board Ideas - How to Build One People Actually Fight Over
Three or four cheeses - a hard, a soft, a blue and a wildcard - about 100g a head, out of the fridge an hour early. Cut so everyone gets rind and middle, eat mild to strong, keep the extras simple, and grate the leftovers.
Rate this recipe
- Prep20 min
- Rest1 hr
- Serves6
- Calories~650
Calories are approximate, per serving, worked out from the ingredients. Brands and portion sizes vary.
Every Christmas, at about nine o'clock, somebody says the six most dangerous words in British cooking: "Shall we get the cheese out?"
Nobody is hungry. Everybody says yes.
Out comes a board with eleven cheeses, half a sleeve of crackers, one lonely grape and a Brie that has been fridge-cold since the second week of November.
It's a tradition. It's also, technically, a crime against cheese.
This is how to do it properly. Three or four cheeses, out of the fridge an hour early, cut so everyone gets a fair share, and a few good things around them. That's it. That's the whole secret.
I've raided the advice of proper British cheesemongers, the French (who have rules about this, naturally, and enforce them) and a great many people online complaining about what went wrong, and boiled it all down into the cheese board ideas that actually get eaten.
Erin has asked me to say she would like her own board, with only "the orange cheese" on it. She has started a petition. She has signed it twice.
Now showing
Short on time? Here's the whole thing in 41 seconds. Less time than the Brie needs to warm up.
Starring Aaron on cheese placement, Eesha on the scales and Erin's marshmallow petition. It did not pass.
What is the 3-3-3 rule for a cheese board?
It's an American party trick that has quietly taken over Instagram.
The full version is the 3-3-3-3 rule, and Tasting Table lays it out neatly: three cheeses, three meats, three things to carry it all (crackers, bread, breadsticks) and three extras like chutney, fruit and nuts.
It's a decent starting point. It's also how you end up needing a second table.
We leave cured pork off our boards, and for an after-dinner one I wouldn't bother with meat at all. If your lot insist, bresaola (air-dried beef) or a few slices of smoked chicken will keep them quiet.
The French, meanwhile, have been doing this for centuries and have opinions. The etiquette guide from the Union des Français de l'Étranger says eat from the mildest to the strongest, never cut the pointy "nose" off a Brie, and never - ever - use the Roquefort knife on anything else.
Eesha the teacher has written all three on the kitchen whiteboard. In red. With a detention list underneath.
The best cheeses for a cheese board
You want one of each kind, not four Cheddars wearing different hats.
- A hard one. Mature Cheddar is the safe bet. Something crumbly like Wensleydale or Lancashire if you fancy a change.
- A soft one. Brie or Camembert - creamy, a bit oozy, and always the first to vanish.
- A blue one. Stilton at Christmas. It's not the law. It feels like the law.
- A wildcard. A soft goat's cheese, a smoked one, something nobody's tried. This is the one people talk about in the car on the way home.
How much? About 100g of cheese a head after a big dinner, according to the cheesemongers Which? spoke to. If the board is dinner, go up to 150-200g each.
For six people after a roast, that's about 600g in total - which is exactly what the recipe below is built on.
Olly the chilli would like a chilli Cheddar as the wildcard. Every year. He says chilli improves everything. He has said this about trifle.
What to put on a cheese board
For six people, after dinner
- 600g cheese: 200g mature Cheddar, 150g Brie, 150g Stilton, 100g soft goat's cheese
- 150g plain crackers or oatcakes. Plain, so they don't shout over the cheese.
- A small jar of caramelised onion chutney (about 90g). Goes with everything. Like a good cardigan.
- 2 tbsp runny honey - lovely with the blue and the goat's cheese
- 300g grapes, in small bunches
- 2 crisp eating apples, sliced just before serving
- 50g walnuts
Kit
- A big board. Our large bamboo board is 45 x 30cm, which fits four cheeses with room to breathe. Cheese likes its personal space.
- An apple corer. An apple corer and slicer cores and wedges a whole apple in one push. No corer? Quarter it, cut out the core, slice.
- One knife per cheese. More on this below. Eesha will be checking.
- Little labels or flags, if you've gone off-piste with the wildcard
Keep the extras simple. One chutney, one sweet thing, fruit, nuts and one kind of cracker. Every extra jar is another thing to wash up and another reason for the crackers to run out.
Grapes and apple also clean your mouth out between cheeses, which is a polite way of saying they stop everything tasting of Stilton.
How to make a cheese board
Step 1 - Take the cheese out an hour early
- Take the cheese out of the fridge about an hour before you want to eat it. Small soft cheeses only need about half an hour.
- Leave it wrapped until you're ready to build, so the cut faces don't dry out.
Fridge-cold cheese tastes of very little. Room temperature is when the flavour turns up.
The French go further and give it an hour and a half. The French have never had to keep a Brie away from a nine-year-old for an hour and a half.
Step 2 - Place the cheeses first
- Put the board where it'll be eaten. Carrying a loaded board through a doorway is how Stilton ends up on the carpet.
- Place the cheeses first, spread out with space around each. Stand wedges upright, points facing out.
- Keep strong away from mild - the blue at one end, the soft cheese at the other.
Bamboo is a good surface for this: it's hard-wearing and gentle on knives. Here's why bamboo beats glass and plastic under a blade, if you want the long version.
Step 3 - Cut a few pieces to get it going
- Cut a few starter pieces of each cheese. Nobody wants to be the first to hack into a perfect wheel.
- Rounds and squares (Brie, Camembert): cut triangles from the middle outwards, like a cake.
- Wedges (Cheddar): slice along the length so each piece gets some rind and some middle. Never cut the tip off.
- Blues: cut fans from the middle. Logs (goat's cheese): slice into rounds.
It's not just manners. The middle of a cheese is milder and the edge is stronger, so cutting from the centre out means everyone gets both.
The person who takes the whole nose of the Brie knows exactly what they've done.
Step 4 - Fill the gaps
- Chutney and honey go in little bowls next to the cheeses they suit: chutney by the Cheddar, honey between the blue and the goat's cheese.
- Fan the apple slices, tuck the grape bunches into the gaps and scatter the walnuts. Snip the grapes into little bunches with kitchen scissors first, so nobody has to strip a whole stalk bare.
- Crackers go round the edge or on a side plate, so they don't go soft against the Brie. Top them up as you go.
Slice the apple last, right before it goes out, and it'll stay white long enough for anyone to care.
Olly has added a chilli jam "for balance". Nobody has asked what it's balancing.
Step 5 - One knife each, mild to strong
- Give every cheese its own knife. The blue knife never goes near the Brie.
- Label them, especially the wildcard.
- Eat from mildest to strongest: goat's cheese, Brie, Cheddar, then the blue last. Start with the blue and you won't taste anything after it.
Out early, back in on time. An hour out of the fridge brings the flavour out. Four hours is where it starts being a problem. West Northamptonshire Council's Christmas food-safety advice says to get party leftovers back in the fridge within 4 hours - and warns that bugs in soft cheese multiply quickly at room temperature. So the Brie doesn't get to stay up for the film.
What not to put on a cheese board
- Eleven cheeses. Three or four. Any more and it all just tastes of "cheese".
- Fridge-cold cheese. See step 1. See it twice.
- Flavoured crackers that fight the cheese. Sweet chilli crackers and Stilton is two shouty people at one party. Olly disagrees. Olly is outvoted.
- Bread and crackers piled against soft cheese. They go soggy. Edge of the board, or a side plate.
- Cling film on the leftovers. One of the cheesemongers in the Which? piece puts it perfectly: cling film gives you "a sweaty cheese".
If anyone at the table is pregnant, the nidirect pregnancy food guidance says hard cheeses like Cheddar are fine, but soft white-rinded cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, and soft blues, should be avoided unless they're cooked until steaming hot. Worth checking before you build the board, not after.
The Christmas cheese board
A christmas cheese board is the same rules, plus a little showing off.
- The classic trio: Cheddar, Stilton and Brie. Add the wildcard if you're feeling brave.
- A slice of Christmas cake. Salty blue cheese with sweet fruit cake is a proper pairing, and in Yorkshire, fruit cake with Wensleydale is practically a family law.
- Pears, dates or figs instead of some of the grapes, for something a bit more festive.
- A few sprigs of rosemary tucked in the gaps. Looks lovely. Not for eating. Isaac has been told.
Leftovers: wrap each one in waxed or baking paper and get it back in the fridge. Keep anything with a sticky, smelly rind in its own tub, or the whole fridge will smell of it by Boxing Day.
Doing the whole dinner, not just the cheese? Here's the turkey, the roasties and the whole day's timings in one place. And when the board's done, a quick wash and a rub of oil keeps it good for next year.
By Boxing Day you'll have a pile of odds and ends. Which brings us to the grater.
How to grate cheese (the leftovers' second career)
The bits nobody finished make the best cheese on toast of the year. Here's what each side of a box grater is for:
- Big holes: most cheeses, softer ones included. Toasties, pasta bakes, jacket potatoes.
- Small holes: firm, aged cheese like mature Cheddar, for a finer finish.
- The spiky side: hard cheese like Parmesan, for that fluffy snow.
- The slot: thin shavings for the top of a salad.
Grating something soft, like the end of the Brie? Pop it in the freezer for about 10 minutes first. It firms up and goes through the grater instead of smearing all over it. Leites Culinaria goes through every side of the grater if you want the full tour.
Grate onto a board, not a plate. It doesn't skid, and it all slides into the pan in one go.
Stop before the last little nub. That bit is for eating, not grating. Ayden grated his knuckle in 2019 and has mentioned it every Christmas since.
If it goes wrong
Cheese tastes of nothing? It's still fridge-cold.
Fix: an hour out of the fridge, still wrapped. Small soft cheeses need about half that.
Brie making a run for the edge of the board? It's been out too long, or the room is roasting.
Fix: 10 minutes back in the fridge firms it up. Next time, cut the soft cheese last.
Soggy crackers? They were sat against the soft cheese.
Fix: crackers round the edge or on a side plate, topped up as you go.
Everything tastes of blue cheese? A shared knife, or the blue went first.
Fix: one knife per cheese, mild to strong, and a slice of apple in between to reset.
Leftovers sweaty or dried out the next day? Cling film, or no wrapping at all.
Fix: waxed or baking paper, back in the fridge within 4 hours.
A mountain of odds and ends?
Fix: grate them. See above. Cheese on toast has never been happier.
Three or four cheeses, an hour out, a knife each and a stern word with anyone reaching for the cling film.
Erin's petition for an all-orange board is still open. It has one signature. Hers. Twice.
Now go and cook something. Or, just this once, unwrap something.
