Passover Charcuterie

If you are having guests over for Passover and want to give them lots of snack choices before or after a Seder, consider creating charcuterie boards. These attractive serving options provide your visitors with a variety of options. Moreover, they can be made in advance so that you can enjoy your time with friends and family rather than spending your time in the kitchen.

Creating a Passover Charcuterie

As we designed this Passover board, we kept the traditional Seder plate in mind. However, two things held us back from actually making the board a legit Seder plate. One, Leah is pescatarian, so we do not serve meat at our meals. Therefore, the lamb shank was out.

And, two, without meat as an option, we wanted to at least recognize the fact that Kosher meals cannot contain both meat and dairy. So, we decided to build our Passover charcuterie board primarily with parve — also spelled pareve —foods.

Our options include eggs — including Leah’s Grandma Yetta’s deviled eggs recipe — fish, nuts, vegetables, fruits and grains (unleavened for Passover). In other words, we used matzo.

Funny thing: we bought our matzo at Trader Joes. It says it is not kosher for Passover. How can matzo not be kosher for Passover? What other time of the year would you be eating it anyway? Every Jew we know can’t wait for the last days of Passover so they can finally stop with the matzo already.

Back to the board: Like we said, we focused on parve foods. One exception is gouda cheese, which is dairy. However, if you want to keep yours neutral because you are serving meat with your meal or for a vegan friend, skip the cheese. Or consider parve vegan cheese. We found some at Target made with cashews. It’s kosher, just not kosher for Passover.

Eggs, Fruit and Cheese

On this board, the grapes and berries provide a sweetness to counterbalance to the more savory eggs, nuts and cheese. Central to this array of snacks is the selection of deviled eggs. Guests will certainly focus on them.

The block of gouda in the middle provides another bold flavor that can be enjoyed with the matzo. Again, if you are serving a meat meal, skip the cheese.

Consider a smoked whitefish or salmon filet. Or, you can go with certified parve vegan cheese. There are also kosher pates available that would complement a meat meal wonderfully.

Items on this Board

• Deviled Egg
• Gouda (Skip or replace if serving meat)
• Matzo
• Grapes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Walnuts
• Apple Slices
• Cucumber Slices
• Parsley

Fish and Olives

The heroes of this board have to be the fish and olives. Gefilte fish, lox (smoked salmon) and olives provide a strong salty base for guests to savor. The apples, apricots (nestled between the apple slices and grapes) and berries provide a sweet alternative for the palette. Also, they offer choices for those who are not drawn to those strong flavors. Again, substitute parve options for the cheese if need be. Since there is no cheese on this Passover board, you could also add meat-based appetizers like chicken liver pâté aka chopped liver.

Items on this Board

• Gefilte Fish
• Smoked Salmon
• Kalamata Olives
• Matzo
• Grapes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Strawberries
• Walnuts
• Apple Slices
• Cucumber Slices
• Apricots
• Red Onion Slices
• Gouda (Skip or replace if serving meat)
• Edam (Skip or replace if serving meat)
• Fontana (Skip or replace if serving meat)

Passover Dessert Board

We hadn’t planned on doing a Passover dessert board for this article. But then we realized what a great opportunity all of those Passover candies provided.

So, after publishing this article, we went back to the drawing board — or the charcuterie board, as the case may be — and designed one just for Jewish desserts. It included store-bought delights as well as fresh fruit. Check out this Passover dessert charcuterie here.

Important Lesson Learned

After creating this article, we learned an important lesson. Raspberries and blackberries break easily and stain wood. So, be careful if you place these berries directly on your charcuterie board. Better yet, use small plates or ramekins for juicy berries for your Passover charcuterie board or any others you may make in the future.