Grazing Platter

5 from 36 votes

Grazing Platter to please a crowd. Fuss free and effortless to bring together with simple steps. Get the party started right!

Prep Time30

Total Time30

Course: Entertaining

Cuisine: Western

Keyword: grazing platter

Servings:

Calories: 167kcal

Author: Adrianne

Equipment

1 Large serving platter
3-4 Cheese knifes
10+ Toothpicks

Ingredients

100 grams/4 oz Hungarian salami hot
100 grams/4 oz Shaved leg ham Note 1
1 wheel Chilli cheddar cheese Note 2
1 wedge Blue cheese Note 3
1 cup Chilli olives Note 4
½ cup Peach, mango, apricot chutney Note 5
1 cup artichokes Note 6
20 Water crackers Note 7
20 Round firm crackers Note 8

Instructions

Dips and nibbles: start by adding your most pick-able ingredients such as the olives and dried apricots to small bowls Note 10
Plate: place these small bowls across the platter, spread apart from each other.
Cheese and meats: follow this by your placing your cheeses and meats around the platter with contrasting colours and textures next to each other.
Additional ingredients: add your fruit and vegetables, as well as both types of crackers. Fill the platter gaps with the extra cheese, salami and grapes.
Serve and enjoy: provide toothpicks, cheese knives and small forks for guests.

Notes

Note 1 - Ham: it does make a difference which area of the store you get your ham from. It is usually available both in the deli section and the fridge section. I recommend getting it from the fridge section. The reason for this is that it is cut very well and looks presentable on the platter. Deli ham can be a bit hit and miss. It is fine for many purposes and can be cheaper as you can get smaller portion sizes, however, you might get home and discovered it is shredded and not in nice slices like the package ham. It is definitely something to be aware of for this recipe.
Note 2 Cheese: your cheese doesn't have to be exactly the same one as mine. Choose a round one at this point as your blue cheese is most likely to be a wedge shape.
Note 3 - More on the cheese: This relates to the point above. Try and get this in a wedge shape so that your different cheese have different shapes to them for visual contrast on the platter.
Note 4 - Olives: If you are not a fan of chilli, go for plain or stuffed green olives. I like the chilli ones and admit I once even ate one of the floor that I dropped at my friends place!! (They are that good).
Note 5 Dips and chutney: The Importance here is not so much the flavour of the chutney, but the colour. Go for a red or orange colour as we want diverse pops of colour across our platter. Orange is a good one to use at this point.
Note 6 Water Crackers: go for thin crackers here as they contrast with the thicker other type of cracker we are using.
Note 7 Thicker crackers: We want a different type of cracker to our water style one. So for this one choose a thicker, more yellow cracker. I like to use either of these types topz or jatz.
Note 8 Serving platter: I assume you won't have the exact same bowls or platter dimensions as me. The way to think about it, use the bowls you have to hold some of the most 'toothpick' type ingredients. I chose my olives and artichokes to begin with. The dips obviously need to go in bowls, fill them up for the dipping! Plate the bigger bowls 1st, then the smaller ones.

Nutrition