Vegan Charcuterie Grazing Board Ideas

Creative and delicious ideas to make the best vegan charcuterie board! Perfect for your next party, follow these easy step by step instructions.

Also known as a grazing board or snack board, these are the perfect appetizer for large groups. They can accommodate a variety of diets and fill you up!

Vegan Charcuterie Board Components

In order to make sure you have the right mix of flavors on your grazing board you want to include foods that hit all the different tastes. Make sure to include a variety of sweet, savory, salty, and spicy options.

Here are the types of items to include (see below for full list of ideas):

• Veggies
• Fruit
• Nuts
• Crackers/Breads
• Vegan Cheese
• Vegan Meats
• Dips and Spreads
• Sweets

How to Make a Vegan Grazing Board

Arranging with platter in such a way to make it beautiful is half the battle. But if you have all the best snacks it ultimately doesn't matter how pretty it is, people will devour it anyway! The best thing about grazing boards is that you can change it up and make them what you want each time.

Here's a guide for how to organize the components:

1. Figure out what you want to include on your board. Refer to the categories and ideas in this post. It helps to write it all down to visually see what you are including.
2. Make sure to include at least one food from each category, but load it up with extras of your favorites.
3. Decide what you want to build your board on. A platter or cutting board are popular options. If you're hosting a big gathering build a vegan grazing table on your dining table or a kitchen countertop.
4. Start with the big things like cheeses and put them center stage but separated a bit.
5. Add bowls of your dips and wet items around the outer edge of the grazing board area to almost create a shape as an edge to follow.
6. Next, take your larger or long veggies/breads/etc and lay them in the spaces between the cheeses and dips.
7. Work your way down from biggest to smallest, ending with food like nuts and dried fruit that can be scattered and piled up to fill in holes.
8. Try to place complementary flavors next to each other.
9. One thing I like to do is keep things like nuts and dried fruit that aren't really messy and a little more firm and just scatter them on the board area instead of putting them in bowls. Of course, you want to make sure your surface is clean first.

Vegan Charcuterie Board Ideas

In order to make a charcuterie board vegan, you must stick with plant based foods. I like to use a mix of produce, and homemade and store bought snacks. The following list of grazing board ideas is broken down by category, so choose a few from each and get to building your board!

Good Vegetable Options

I could honestly call the ones I put together veggie charcuterie boards since I use so many veggies in my platters. Well, because veggies! Having a good variety will give options for all to enjoy. Plus, it's a great way to step out of our comfort zones and try something new.

• Broccoli - break into small florets
• Carrots - slice into thin sticks or cut into rounds
• Mushrooms - depending on the size of your mushrooms you may want to leave them whole or cut
• Cucumbers - cut into circles or sticks
• Zucchini or yellow squash - like cucumbers, these are great as either rounds or sticks
• Cherry tomatoes - cut them in half if small kiddos will be snacking
• Asparagus - leave them in the spear form
• Potatoes - cube or cut into wedges
• Radishes - there are a variety of ways you can cut these, slices, wedges, halves, etc.
• Cauliflower - separate into small florets
• Peppers - thin strips or triangles are great for dipping
• Celery - make sure to pull the extra strings!
• Snap peas - serve as is

Some of these vegetables can be served raw or blanched and some should be cooked like potatoes. Either way, they make great vehicles to dip and provide awesome nutrients for your body.

The Best Fruit for Snacking

While any fruit would taste amazing to fill the sweet flavor profile, you don't want anything super messy since charcuterie boards are basically finger food. Avoid extra soft and juicy fruit, like peaches.

• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Grapes
• Apples
• Oranges
• Melon
• Figs

Plant Based Meat Ideas

Keep with the traditional theme of charcuterie and include some meat alternatives, either store bought or homemade.

• The Best Vegan Meatballs
• Gluten Free Vegan Sausage Recipe
• Easy Vegan Mushroom Bacon
• Vegan Portobello Mushroom Steak - cut into slices or cubes
• Pepperoni alternative
• Vegan Salami

Vegan Cheese Options

Offer a mix of store bought and homemade vegan cheese for a dairy free charcuterie board. If you only need to make it vegetarian feel free to use your favorite standard cheeses.

Store bought brands I like:

• Miyoko's Creamery vegan cheese
• Follow Your Heart
• Chao by Fieldroast
• Violife
• Kite Hill
• Treeline
• Vromage
• Parmela's Creamery

Cheese recipes from my website:

• Vegan Cheese Fondue
• Vegan Cream Cheese
• Vegan Bruschetta Cheese Ball
• Vegan Jalapeño Ranch Cheese Ball
• Vegan Parmesan
• Nacho Cheese Dip
• Creamy Vegan Cheese
• Sharp White Vegan Cheese

Condiments and Dips for a Charcuterie Board

No charcuterie board would be complete without a dip or two! The selections here are endless and can easily be customized to fit what you like. Plus it can be adapted for any kind of eater.

Here are some dip ideas, both from my website and things you can also purchase already made that we love:

• Greek Hummus
• Roasted Carrot Hummus
• Fresh Tomato Marinara
• Fresh Mexican Salsa
• Spicy Cilantro Cream Dip
• Vegan Tahini Sauce
• Vegan Ranch Dip
• Simple Guacamole
• Vegan Buffalo Chicken Dip
• Healthy Vegan Spinach Artichoke Dip
• Yogurt Date Dip
• Healthy Garlic Aioli
• Mustard - whole grain, dijon, or yellow
• Jams and Jellies
• Fig Spread
• Honey (or agave nectar if you don't eat honey)

Bread and Other Carb Dippers

Another favorite dipper area of mine is the bread and carb category. There are so many fun options out there both store bought and homemade. Use gluten free options if you need to.

From soft breads, to crunchy crackers, here are some of our top picks for vegan grazing boards!

• Potato chips
• Crackers
• Breadsticks
• Bread - crusty bread like sourdough or baguettes do best
• Pasta - think bigger shapes
• Puffs
• Tortilla chips
• Tortillas

Nuts and Other Add Ons

There are a variety of extras that go in this category, from sweet to savory. These smaller items can be sprinkled around the grazing board in between the larger foods.

• Dried fruit
• Dates
• Nuts like almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios
• Flavored versions of nuts
• Pickles
• Olives
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Crispy chickpeas

More Grazing Board Recipes

If you're looking to bulk up your veggie grazing board into a full on meal, these heavier snacks will go great!

• Gluten Free Vegan Sausage Balls
• Vegan Gluten Free Stuffed Mushrooms
• Easy Vegan Pigs in a Blanket
• Vegan Stuffed Jalapeños Recipe
• Veggie tots
• French Fries
• Easy Homemade Vegan Sushi
• Vegan Pinwheels

Remember that the options are endless, and if you follow the groups of ideas I gave above, your charcuterie board can easily come together as a whole food nutritious meal. It's especially a great option for kids who may be picky to have so many choices!

• Allow kids to help build it to increase the chance that they will try more of the items.
• The amount of items you have should correspond to how many people you want to feed. You don't want too much food, but you also want enough.
• Choose your platter size based on the amount of food you will be serving, you want it to look fully loaded, not super spread out.
• Consider the shapes of the food, cut everything into a wide variety of strips, circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles.
• Include a mix of colors to up the beauty factor.
• Place messy foods that might contaminate other flavors into small dishes so they don't touch.