What to Put on a Cheese Board (That Isn't Crackers)

|Team TEMPTÉ
tempeh crisps on cheese board

Crackers are the default for a reason. They're neutral, they're crisp, they hold their shape under a wedge of brie.

They're also, if we're honest, the least interesting thing on the board — and if you've ever watched a cheese board get demolished at a party, you'll have noticed the crackers are what's left at the end.

Here's what to put out instead. Or alongside, if you can't quite let go.


Start with the job the cracker is doing

There are only three things a cheese board actually needs beyond the cheese:

Something to carry it. A vehicle. Firm enough not to snap under a knife.

Something sharp or sweet. Cheese is fat and salt. It needs a counterweight.

Something with crunch. Most cheese is soft or crumbly. The board wants texture that isn't.

A cracker only does the first one, and it does it adequately. Everything below does at least one of them better.


Better vehicles

Oatcakes. The Scottish answer, and a better one. Rougher, nuttier, and sturdy enough for a mature cheddar. Rough-milled if you can find them.

Sourdough, torn not sliced. Toast it lightly. Torn edges hold soft cheese in a way a clean slice doesn't.

Baked tempeh crisps. We would say this, so judge it on the reasoning below rather than on our word. Firm enough not to snap under a soft cheese, savoury enough to hold its own next to a strong one, and unfamiliar enough that people pick one up and ask what it is.

Rye crispbread. Dense, sour, excellent with blue cheese. Widely available and consistently overlooked.

Endive leaves or chicory. No carbohydrate at all, slightly bitter, and they hold a scoop of anything soft. Better than they sound.


Sharp and sweet things

Quince paste (membrillo). The classic partner for a hard sheep's cheese. Sweet, floral, holds its shape when sliced.

A proper chutney. Not the sugary supermarket sort — something with vinegar in the foreground. Onion, fig or tomato.

Cornichons. Small, sharp, and they cut through fat better than anything else on this list.

Pickled walnuts. Deeply British, entirely out of fashion, and superb with a strong cheddar. Worth reviving.

Fresh fruit. Grapes and apples for reliability; a ripe pear with blue cheese if you want something better than reliable. Figs when they're in season.

Honey, in the comb if you can get it. Especially with pecorino or a hard goat's cheese.


Crunch

Toasted walnuts or hazelnuts. Warm them in a dry pan for two minutes first. It makes a genuine difference.

Celery. Unglamorous, and one of the best things on any cheese board. Cold, snappy, faintly bitter.

Radishes. With good butter and flaky salt, alongside the cheese rather than on it.

Crystallised ginger. Odd, and it works with a mature hard cheese.


Why fermented things go with fermented things

There's a reason a cheese board already contains chutney, pickles and sourdough, and it isn't only tradition. We are, on the evidence of the average British fridge, a nation thoroughly committed to fermentation.

Cheese is a fermented food. So is sourdough, so is a proper vinegary chutney, and so — as it happens — is tempeh. Fermentation builds savoury depth: the same process that turns milk into something with character does comparable work on beans and dough. Put two of them next to each other and they tend to meet in the middle rather than argue.

This is the case for a baked tempeh crisp on a board, and it's a straightforwardly culinary one. It's nutty and faintly earthy from the culture, which sits alongside a washed-rind or a mature cheddar rather than underneath it. It's baked rather than fried, so there's no film of oil competing with the fat already in the cheese. And it's properly savoury — a lot of crackers carry more sugar than people realise, which is fine with a mild brie and less fine with anything assertive.

A few pairings worth trying:

  • Roasted garlic tempeh with a soft goat's cheese. The garlic does what a chutney would, so you can skip one.
  • With a blue. Salt against savoury, and the crisp holds up to being loaded.
  • With a mature cheddar. Both are doing the fermented-and-nutty thing, from opposite directions.

Worth knowing, if anyone asks at the table: the white bloom on a brie and the culture that makes tempeh are closely comparable — both are moulds humans domesticated for the job. Which is a better cheese board conversation than most.


How much you actually need

The usual catering guidance is around 100–150g of cheese per person if it's the main event, and half that if there's a meal either side. Err generous — leftover cheese is not a problem anyone has complained about.

Three cheeses is enough. Four is generous. Beyond that people stop tasting the differences and start grazing at random.

Pick three that differ: something hard and aged, something soft and mild, something blue or otherwise assertive. If you're catering for people avoiding dairy, a firm nut-based cheese and a good pâté do the same structural job.


Two things that ruin a good board

Serving it cold. The Academy of Cheese recommends taking cheese out of the fridge at least an hour before serving, and it's the single change that improves a board more than anything you can buy for it.

The reason is fat. Cheese is largely fat, fat carries flavour, and cold fat contracts and holds its aroma in. Let it come up to around 20–22°C and the molecules relax and the aromas release. Timing varies by cheese: a ripe brie can want two hours, a hard cheddar about one, fresh cheeses like mozzarella or young goat's only thirty minutes. Leave it in its wrapping while it warms so it doesn't dry out.

One caveat that gets forgotten at parties: chilled food shouldn’t sit out indefinitely. The Food Standards Agency says food that needs to be chilled can be out of the fridge for up to four hours during serving. After that, put it back in the fridge or throw it away. In practice, put out what you expect to eat rather than leaving the whole board on the table all evening.

Overcrowding it. A board with eight accompaniments looks abundant and eats badly. Three or four, with room around them, is better.


The short version

Keep the crackers if you like them. But a board with oatcakes, cornichons, toasted walnuts and something unexpected to scoop with is a more interesting thing to stand around than a board with three sorts of cracker and some grapes.

The cheese is doing the heavy lifting. Everything else is just deciding how you get it to your mouth — and it may as well be worth eating on its own.


About the tempeh crisps

We're Tempté, and we make baked tempeh crisps in Scotland.

We started because we wanted a savoury snack with some substance to it — something baked rather than deep-fried in palm oil, made from whole fermented beans, and firm enough to stand up to a dip or a soft cheese without folding in half. Tempeh has been eaten in Indonesia for centuries and it bakes into a properly crunchy crisp with a nutty, savoury flavour of its own.

Which is how we ended up writing about cheese boards. Ours is the only thing on this list we make, but it earns its place for the same reason the chutney does — fermented things belong together.

 

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