 I'm going to show you how to make a meat river, which sounds like something I want to take a cruise on. Hi, I'm Kristen. I'm an editor at the Spruce Eats, and today I'll be showing you how to build a cheese board for four people at three different price points, $25, $75, and $150. So when you're building your cheese board, you want to make sure you hit your five tastes. That's sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and do mommy. And if you have that in mind, everything just becomes a paint by numbers approach. Okay, so I'm going to show you the $25 cheese board. We've got three cheeses, one meat, and a few crunchy veg along with some sweetness. One of the most important things when you're building out a cheese board is, no matter your price point, have something that's a little bit exciting and a little unexpected. I've actually got here little pearl-line mozzarella balls, and we're going to pop these on the plate, and they're just, I think, super exciting and fun. For a little bit of interest, I zest a bit of lemon zest over the top of them. You know, just just them up with whatever you have lying around. I think a lot of people wouldn't expect this to show up on a $25 cheese board, but they're quite affordable. This is a hunk of blue, and I actually just did a quarter pound of this because it's so pungent, and it also might not be everyone's favorite, but it does give some variety and a nice punch. And then we've got a nice sharp cheddar. There's no wrong way to do this. I do find, though, that it's nice to keep the food clustered, so I'm putting all the sharp cheddar, for example, in one spot. People can understand, oh, there's three cheeses on this board, not thinking that, oh, there's seven different types of cheese because they're all scattered around. And then we're going to move on from here to kind of my favorite part of a cheese board, if I'm being honest, and that's the little accoutrement. We've got some little baby cucumbers. One of them is running away. I enjoy these because they have a nice thinner skin to them, and they also add just this immediate pop of color, and it also creates a nice little dividing wall. It's like this little river of cucumbers. Next up, I'm going to use some radishes. I've got these with the nice tops still on them. In building your cheese board, it's nice also to remember the texture of all your food. That's why I've added cucumbers, radishes, anything you can get your hands on that's going to add a little bit of freshness, a little bit of contrast to this creamy cheese that's happening. Okay, so next up is the charcuterie part of your board, and this is optional, obviously. If you're not a meat eater, skip this part. But if you do enjoy some meats, a soprasada is really a nice option, so you're just going to take one of your slices, fold it in half, fold it in half again, and then if you pop it up like this and kind of give it a pinch on the bottom with your impeccably clean hands, you'll have this nice little ribbony kind of effect with your meat. So a rule of thumb when you're building up a cheese board is about one to two ounces of cheese and meat per person, and that's of each kind of cheese and each kind of meat, and that's a good rule of thumb if you're doing a board that's meant to be kind of an appetizer or something for a cocktail hour. We've got on this board a lot of saltiness, we've got crunch and fresh, but we're missing that element of sweet, and that's where your fruits or jams and spreads can come in handy. We're going to do an apricot jam. I'm going to put my apricot jam down next to the blue cheese to kind of give people a little suggestion there of how to pair and build some bites. We're going to add a little bit of pear slices to add some fresh sweetness through that fruit, and then also the vehicle. We have to put this stuff on things. Apparently it's not acceptable to just like shovel the cheese board in your mouth with your hands, so we're going to do some bread slices on this. Pairs here in New York cost about a dollar per pair. If you're living elsewhere, perhaps you can spring for two pairs, putting them upward so we can see some of that pretty green. So this little rustic loaf of bread, nice and crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and this is going to be your vehicle. This is a good just thing to bulk up the board. I find that people tend to be a little scared of, should I touch it? Is it ready? Can I eat it? So what I always do is like to just kind of get people going and give them the nod that, hey, it's okay, you can go after this. So this is our $25 cheese board. I will be honest with you, this went slightly over. This was $25.36. I think we did a pretty good job here for $25 and a slight bit of change. So you don't have to go trekking to a cheese monger, especially if you're just trying to throw together a less expensive board. You can find some great cheese options in your grocery stores. This is my version of a perfect $25 cheese board, but is there something on here that you are just not a fan of? Is there something that you would like to see on this board? Let us know. So because I have a little more money to spend on this board, I actually took myself to my favorite cheese monger in New York City, Murray's Cheese, and I talked to a super knowledgeable cheese monger there, and she pointed me in the right direction to get some variety on my board. And that's what led me to actually two of the four cheeses that you're going to be seeing me put on this board today. One is a fun buffalo cheese. So that's something new and a little exciting. Typically you're seeing cow's milk or goat milk cheese, but this is a buffalo cheese. And you can see here that it's got gorgeous, just natural rind on it there that's doing its thing. There's some stink to it. There's a little bit of stickiness to it. That's all wonderful. And then also a fun wrapped cheese called a late bloomer, which has some delicious little edible flowers on it. It also just looks beautiful. Got the green bluish mold. I would say that this late bloomer cheese is that little exciting unusual pop to this cheeseboard. One thing I will say when you're building your cheeseboards is leave your cheese out of the fridge wrapped for about an hour before you're anticipating your guests coming over. Cheese just tastes better when it's at an ambient temperature. The next addition to the $75 board is actually a pretty affordable and common cheese. And that's ricotta. This adds a totally different texture. And ricotta has this natural sort of slight sweetness to it. It's just going to be a really nice kind of clean taste. And then a cheese that you again is familiar, but you really can't pull off on a $25 board is Parmesan. So this is true Italian Parmigiano Reggiano. And I think it's one of the most like underrated cheeseboard cheeses because it just crumbles so nicely and it's just the perfect just burst of umami and saltiness. On the $75 board, we've got enough budget here to actually provide two different meats. I've got this hard salami, which is a spicy salami. And you always want to take this casing off, even though it is edible, it's just not really the most pleasant experience. To contrast that spicy chewy salami, I've got mortadella, which is just this nicer Italian version of bologna. And it has really pretty green pistachios in it. I'm literally just plopping it down and giving it a little, I don't know, a little flick of the wrist, a little jug. And if you want to see an episode of me talking all about charcuterie and the ins and outs of different types, just leave a comment below. All right, so olives are up next. I'm going to throw them kind of loosey-goosey on the board. Another addition to a little bit more expensive board is some nuts. So in this case, I'm going to be using a walnut. I really love the contrast of a nut with some of this parm cheese. If you can kind of suggest to your guests what might be nice pairings, you have everything going on here, but we do need a punch of some sweetness. So fresh raspberries are going down. That sort of deep flavor of a berry is really nice against the cheese. And now we're going to amp it up with a fig spread. Fig is a very classic cheese pairing. So the vehicle for the 75-tallard cheese board is going to be a few different kinds of crackers. So the first one up is just a classic water cracker. Find like a dry patch of land on your cheese board. Otherwise, you're going to end up with like unintentionally soggy crackers. I'm also going to pop on just because I can because I have a little more budget, a different cracker. These have some sesame that's about as most as I would go in terms of flavor would be like a sesame or a sea salt. Okay, that's our $75 cheese board. So what sets this apart from your $25 variety is we've got clearly a few more cheese types. We've also got two different meats. And we kind of upped the game a bit in our cheese. And then we've got just a little bit more elevated in terms of the pairings. The fig jam and the raspberries are a little higher in price point. And we've also added some nuts to add some earthiness and some crunch to this board. If you had $75 to spend on a cheese board, would you want more quantity of cheese or just really expensive different cheeses? How would you spend the money? Tell us in the comments below. So our final cheese board is $150 of cheese and meat and veggies and all kinds of goodies. The biggest difference with this cheese board is really going to be the caliber of the cheese. There is not a single hunk of cheese on this board that's less than $18 or so. So I thought it would be kind of a fun journey on this $150 board to do a little taste off between a couple different chevs. Didn't pronounce that right. It's chevro. The first is one of my favorites, which is Humboldt Fog. Crumbly sort of part in the center and then you'll see the exterior rim around the outside is going to be more ooey and gooey. In comparison, we're going to have another chevro on the board, which is actually an up in smoke is the name of it. The cheese itself is wrapped in a maple leaf. It has a smoky flavor to it because of that wrapping and aging process. And it also is just visually gorgeous. You'll notice the cheeses on this $150 board even more so than the $75 are just going to be visually so stunning. First thing you notice about them is their looks. I'm going to unwrap the maple leaf wrapped up in smoke. So we're going to leave that like this. All right. Next up, the Torto del Cesar. It is a sheep's milk cheese. It is sticky and gooey and has a nice aroma to it. I don't know that like you really need much else. But there's more. Fourth cheese is Montenebro. I just think ash-coated cheese of any kind says wealth. I'm going to put the little nugget there and then scatter around our pieces. The cheese is down. It's time for all of the other things. Meats, we've got a really nice thin slice this time. Chorizo and then the Bresaola is just pure beef moments. You know I'm making you know similar to I did last time but I'm noticing the Bresaola has a bit of and this is totally normal and natural oxidation on the outside so it's not going to look as pretty if I position them like this so I'm just going to do little triangles and kind of stack them. Not going to do anything extra fancy with these but I am just going to help my guests along and sort of separate. So if you had $150 to make a cheese board, who would you make it for? Friends, family, enemies. I want to introduce you if you don't already know to the almond for the 1% and that's the Marcona almond. These are fancy like real fancy and by fancy I mean expensive but they are delicious. This little container was $8 so this little date almond cake is a pre-made little kind of pancake of sorts of just dried dates and almonds and I think that this honestly this sort of thing goes with anything on the board so I'm not afraid to kind of let it linger over some of the meat and be close up to some of the cheeses. The nuts are going to also go in a nice pile here and then we're going to come in hot with some blackberries. I also really enjoy how these blackberries are looking against this maple leaf. It's as if I discovered this board in the woods. Next up is our briny and our sort of freshness. So for that I'm doing some pickles but not any pickle. We're doing fancy pickles which are just corn chants. Just a medley of olives. There's going to be some grapes pretty. I've also got some endive here. They really can serve as like an alternative to a cracker or a piece of bread because it is like a little boat. This is another cracker that's a very elevated. The rain coast crisps. What's so fun about them is that they've got little bits of nuts in them. It's like a browner bread. These have cranberries too. You also want to make sure you put out just like a neutral cracker. Again a water cracker or even a Ritz cracker or something like that. For my last trick I got here some spicy pickled okra. So now I just need to find a place to put it. This is our over-the-top extravagant 150 cheese board. All just special interesting different cheeses that you're just not going to get on your average cheese board. You're going to probably only see these cheeses like out at a restaurant or if you really make a point of like getting to know your cheese monger. Fancy stuff is nice. All right that'll do it. If you enjoyed watching me put some cheese boards together, struggling with some cheese or if you just enjoy cheese, don't forget to like this video, leave a comment and definitely subscribe to The Spruce Eats.