There is nothing more fun than constructing a charcuterie board for guests. And with upcoming patriotic holidays, entertainment might be on the horizon.
This time I’m doing something a little different – using charcuterie cups for individual servings instead of a board.
Cute disposable cups and picks come in a kit which I purchased from Amazon. I’ve seen similar kits available at Home Goods so I think they are readily available.
These were so cute and so up my alley I ordered them quite a while back but just haven’t had the right chance to use them.
Memorial Day and July 4th seem to draw people together and I thought it would be fun to see what I could come up with that looked patriotic and tasty all at the same time.
Assembling Ingredients
Just like assembling ingredients for boards, choosing ingredients for the cups used the same logic. Salty, savory and sweet items were needed. Giving a nod to red and blue food selections turned these into patriotic charcuterie cups.
For salty ingredients I used pistachio nuts, crackers and pretzels. The shape of the cups made using long thin shapes easier than round or oval. I had different crackers in mind, but the long oven-baked corn crackers worked best.
For savory items I used cheddar and deli turkey. Small slices of stacked cheese threaded with rolled turkey meat worked fine. On my savory pick I added a radish, a teeny tiny cucumber and an olive.
The sweet ingredients were the patriotic flare! Fresh berries, blue and red M&Ms and a blue wrapped Lindor chocolate turned out to be the stars of the charcuterie cups.
Construction
Constructing the first cup is going to take some time, so I would not call this a last-minute project. Once you get the first one perfected however, the rest should come quickly.
The first tiny roadblock I hit was that my cups were very deep and I would have needed an entire bag of nuts to fill the bottom.
Grapes would be nice to place in the bottom and they would help hold in the picks. It’s still a large cup for what I had in mind.
Two folded paper towels brought the nuts up to a good height and allowed me to build from there.
As I mentioned, the crackers I intended to use were round and didn’t fit well into the cups. The long, narrow crackers I purchased from Aldi were perfect.
Pretzel sticks sort of got lost in the background, but I really wanted to use them so I tried to keep them grouped together.
Wrap Up
All in all, this was a really fun and creative appetizer. It lends itself to any holiday because you could use foods in colors that easily fit a theme such as Christmas or a shower.
The brown kraft paper-like cups are great for any occasion. Place a sticker, label, ribbon and customize any way you’d like it.
With Memorial Day weekend coming right up, I hope this gives you a little inspiration if you need it.
To see the most stunning charcuterie board I’ve come across, take a peek at this post.
Thanks for being here and as always, God bless you and yours.