This Pretty Charcuterie Board Is Our New Go-To for Entertaining
Updated: Apr. 27, 2023
The impressive (and insanely delicious) snack boards from Boarderie give you and your guests a nibble of the good life.
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In 2019, I took a class on cheese and charcuterie board assembly with Marissa Mullen, the author of That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life. I diligently folded salami and sliced cheese and arranged herbs, and I beamed at the beautiful board I’d created. I left the tutorial with grandiose visions of crafting similar ones again and again for friends and family alike.
Four years later, and I’ve made one, maybe two. And this is the case for a number of reasons. Remarkable, jam-packed charcuterie and cheese boards are incredibly expensive to make, not to mention labor intensive. They also require a knowledge of cheese varieties and flavor pairings that I simply do not have.
I resigned to the fact that fancy charcuterie boards just weren’t going to happen for me at home. They would be a restaurant treat and a restaurant treat alone. Then, I heard about Boarderie—my snack-board saving grace.
What is Boarderie?
A quarantine brainchild of two Florida-based caterers, Boarderie is a company that proudly produces and ships restaurant-quality charcuterie and cheese boards across the country. In the three short years since the company’s inception in 2020, Boarderie has been featured as a product on Shark Tank and selected as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things.
Each order includes free overnight shipping and arrives chilled. The reusable wooden boards are loaded with paper trays that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. And each tray is meticulously filled with an assortment of cheeses, nuts, candies, meats, spreads, olives and dried fruits that have already been sliced and arranged. Additionally, the shipment comes with boxes of crackers, bamboo cutlery and a diagram of the board’s toppings.
Finally, a product to fill the hole in my charcuterie board heart! Having a fully crafted and exquisite board sent to my home was much easier than blindly picking out ingredients and trying to assemble them in a way that would impress my guests. I chose the the impressive Arte Cheese & Charcuterie Board, which feeds 9-10 people, and invited a lucky group of friends over.
How to Assemble
To assemble the board—if you can even call it assembling, all I had to do was simply unwrap the individual trays and re-situate them on the serving board. This compartmentalization of the board’s toppings made it easy to set up and made it clear which accoutrements were to be paired together.
I’ll spare you a list of all 35—yes, 35!—ingredients on my Arte board and just hit the highlights. My friends’ and my favorites were BellaVitano espresso cheese, blueberry-vanilla goat cheese, Peppadew pepper white cheddar cheese, salami picante, everything-seasoning cashews and candied pecans. Is your mouth watering yet?
And each board, big and small, boasts a similarly masterful assortment of hand-selected artisan munchies. Boarderie also offers holiday-specific boards, cheese-only boards, small-scale boards and the oh-so-alluring Deluxe Baked Brie Board (that’s next on my list!).
Why I Love Boarderie
I’m a known charcuterie fanatic, so it wouldn’t take a lot for me to love this board. And yet, it offered a lot anyway.
The simple setup is enough to splurge on the board. Although some items, such as the rosemary and pepperoncinis, needed a bit of zhuzhing after being unwrapped, it took me less than 10 minutes to take the board from plastic-wrapped to ready-to-serve. And it’s not as though the board was just passable; it was downright stunning. All the boards available on the Boarderie website are a gorgeous amalgamation of textures and colors that excites various senses.
The Arte board was aromatic and easy on the eyes, sure, but it needed to deliver on taste, too. And that it did. The contents were obviously high quality. Also, they were novel enough to make the board really stand out from those you would find at a market. I can’t say I’d ever had wasabi-horseradish cheddar, rose goat cheese or dried strawberries. And I won’t soon forget these delicacies.
Although the price tag is high, an individual certainly couldn’t craft a board with as much quality and variety—and with as little food waste—for cheaper. So if you have an upcoming special occasion or are looking for a memorable edible gift, consider a Boarderie board.
And speaking of occasions on which to eat one of these masterpieces… I’d recommend an intimate happy hour or a small dinner party. My favorite part of the Boarderie board was the experiential aspect. A few friends and I had a lovely time huddling around the board, trying each item, discussing the flavors and swapping opinions, sipping wine intermittently. It was such fun to consume the board with as much intention as it was created. (Psst! See more sendable charcuterie gift baskets.)
But Don’t Take My Word for It!
Tons of other people are on board with Boarderie, too.
Of the Arte board specifically and its substantiality, customer Doug L. says, “I was skeptical upon receiving this, believing it to be too small for my gathering, but I was wrong. Not only did this amply feed a crowd of twelve, I was surprised by the many unsolicited positive comments I received about this. I will definitely be ordering more in the future.”
And it sounds like customer Jacque N.’s crew had an equally good time as mine, nibbling and learning: “We had a blast looking at the selections on the board and looking at the diagram to see what each item was. It was very interactive trying the various and yummy options and commenting to each other as we all tried everything!”
Nicole Doster, the content director for Taste of Home as well as our other brands, celebrated her birthday with a Diletto board and would gladly add it to her guest list again. “I was absolutely blown away,” she says. “The box arrived in perfect condition with over a dozen meats, cheeses and extra nibbles; it practically looked like a piece of art. In addition to the high-quality ingredients, the board came complete with mini wooden tongs and cheese knives, which made it party-ready in minutes. I’d highly recommend this.”
Where to Buy Boarderie Boards
You can head over to the Boarderie website for a board of your own. These edible pieces of art cost between $129 and $299 depending on the size and type you choose (the Arte board is $249). It might sound like a lot, but that’s about how much a group of friends might spend on a night out. Now say cheese!
Originally Published: April 27, 2023
