Putting together a healthy charcuterie plate is an easy and impressive way to create a special weekend meal or wow friends and family with a delicious meat and cheese board for appetizers and the holidays.
Whether you call it a charcuterie plate, charcuterie board, a meat and cheese plate, or a meat and cheese plate, no matter what it’s going to be amazing!
A charcuterie board can still be healthy, we decided to skip anything with sugar or processed carbs and the board we put together is low carb, Keto, gluten free and sugar free.
And what’s even better yet, all of the ingredients are from Trader Joes, which is the best place to get charcuterie plate ingredients!
Preparing a healthy charcuterie board has become our go to Friday night dinner (along with drinks of course!) My whole family loves it and it makes an easy way to extend a last minute invitation to friends or neighbors.
Creating an easy a Keto meat and cheese board gets a little trickier if you’re trying to stay away from crackers to go with that meat and cheese, and want to include fruits or veggies but aren’t sure what you can eat when you’re tracking your carbs.
But have no concerns! We’re including all the ingredients, carb counts and resources use to not only make it easy for you to not only put together an impressive low carb charcuterie board, to also keep the cost down. We’ve also included our favorite TJ add-ons for people that aren’t watching their carbs or snack items to add for your friends and family.
What Kind of Board to Use
Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy board, once it’s all covered with your meats, cheeses, and veggies, no one will even notice what you put it on. We have a variety of sizes simply because sometimes we’re making a small low carb charcuterie board for two and other times we’re assembling a meat and cheese board for 8 people.
A cutting board, platter or plate you already have at home all work great! If you’re wanting to get a special charcuterie board, these are all great options:
This Amazon Choice board includes handy mini serving ceramic dishes and spoons
A long Acacia serving board– These sell like hot cakes, but there’s other similar items if this one is sold out. My favorite serving board is a long handled board similar to this that we purchased at Ikea last year. Some retailers sell similar long handled Acacia wood serving boards for over $60, so if you can get one under $35, it’s a good price. Acacia makes a gorgeous and durable serving board that’s beautiful to display on your counter all year round.
Tree Bark Round platter- A tree slice round with bark is our go-to platter for a smaller meat and cheese board display. With a smooth and finished surface, they’re food safe and easy to care for. We love that this one has a footed base.
This fun slate cheese board is next on our list to purchase! It makes it easy to write the names of the various meats and cheeses with the soap stone chalk that’s included.
What to Include on Your Low Carb Charcuterie Board
When we’re putting together a larger charcuterie board, we like to use:
🧀 3+ varieties of cheese
🧀 3+ varieties of meats
🧀 Vegetables
🧀 Crunchy items like cheese crisps, pepperoni crisps or low carb crackers
🧀 Antipast0 items like olives, marinated artichoke hearts, or marinated veggies
🧀 Low carb nuts
🧀 Low carb fruit
You of course can skip the nuts and fruit if you’re making a Keto board and want t0 keep your low carb meat and cheese board as low in carbs as possible.
That being said, when serving a crowd the color variations and having some crisp items like nuts are nice for guests too.
If you’re making a small low carb meat and cheese board, simply using at least one kind of cheese, one kind of meat, and olives makes a simple charcuterie board!
Our favorite Charcuterie Ingredients
To assemble this exact low carb and Keto charcuterie plate, we want to share exactly what we used. Our FAVORITE place to shop for charcuterie board ingredients is Trader Joes. One of the best parts about shopping at Trader Joes is their exquisite cheese department, their cheese prices and variety are hard to beat.
Cheese Selection
This is what we used:
- Unexpected Cheddar – a cheddar parmesan blend that is surprisingly addicting
- Fresh mini mozzarella balls- the marinated ones are amaze-balls!
- Double Gloucester with onions and chives
- Cheddar with Caramelized Onions
Other great cheeses:
havarti with dill, gouda, and wild blueberry vanilla chèvre (if you aren’t watching carbs)
Meats – Trader Joes also has a great selection of salami, buying their Gourmet Deli Selection variety pack of calabese salami, capocollo, and del duca is always a favorite.
Vegetable – celery & broccoli
Crunchies – we added our recipe for 1 minute pepperoni chips, using the TJ Volpi pepperoni and also added the TJ Oven-Baked Cheese Bites
Antipast0 – kalamata olives, marinated grilled artichoke halves
Dip- Blue Cheese dressing- 0 net carbs per serving
Low carb nuts – Dry Roasted & Salted Pistachios and Dry Roasted Unsalted Almonds. Because of the high fiber content, nuts are low carb and Keto in moderation. 1/4 cup of pistachios is 6 net carbs and the dry roasted almonds only have 2 net carbs per 1/4 cup serving.
Low carb fruits – Berries are some of the lowest carb fruits, we used blueberries, which have 8.6 net carbs for 1/2 cup. Other good choices are raspberries with 8.4 net carbs for ONE cup, and blackberries with 5.9 net carbs per 1/2 cup. We added apples for our kids, which come in at 19 net carbs for an entire apple. Of course, most people might just have 1-2 slices, which brings the carb count significantly down.
T.J. Carb add-ons
IF you’re interested in awesome charcuterie plate TJ items and aren’t trying to count carbs or want to add some carb snacks for your guests, we love the following:
Scalloped Cracker Trio- rosemary, red chili and garlic crackers. Other good varieties are their Cracker Assortment, Fig & Olive Crisps, and Golden Rounds
Step Up to the Snack Bar Mix- new item!
Fig butter
Sea salt chocolate covered almonds
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We hope you found some inspiration for making your own healthy charcuterie plate! While Trader Joes is definitely our top choice for charcuterie meats and cheeses, you can definitely find similar items at other grocery stores if you don’t have one near by.
We’d love it if you could post your charcuterie plate photos on the Pinterest pin!
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