This turkey Thanksgiving charcuterie board is an easy and festive way to serve up appetizers prior to your Thanksgiving feast! This charcuterie board for Thanksgiving is filled with all the fillings for a traditional charcuterie board but designed to look like a fun Thanksgiving themed charcuterie board that everyone will love! It’s almost too cute to eat – almost!
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Thanksgiving Turkey Charcuterie Board
I’ve seen all sorts of fun Thanksgiving charcuterie board ideas out there so when I decided to make one for our family, I wanted to do something a little different.
This Thanksgiving charcuterie board is one of my favorite charcuterie boards that we’ve ever made with the hummus turkey and feathers made out of all sorts of cheese, crackers, and charcuterie meats!
It’s simple, festive, and the perfect addition to any Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving feast!
Why you’ll love this
- Festive – this fun Thanksgiving board is almost too cute to eat with its adorable turkey shape made using hummus, crackers, and cheese!
- Easy – with our step by step instructions, you’ll be able to create this Thanksgiving board in minutes!
- Kid-friendly – while a lot of cheese boards are better for adults, this one has plenty of fruit and cheese cubes that are also great for kids, making it perfect for a pre-Thanksgiving snack!
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Hummus – this board uses both regular roasted garlic hummus (for the head) and roasted red pepper hummus (for the body). You could technically just one one or the other, but I love the separation and how it makes it look like an actual turkey body!
- Nuts – we used a variety of nuts on this turkey charcuterie board including mixed nuts, pecans for the feet, and pistachios for feather fillers. The only one you really need are the pecans for the feet – the others can be substituted with your favorite kind of nuts!
- Crackers – we used a combination of different sizes and shapes of crackers to give the appearance of turkey feathers in this Thanksgiving board! Again, you can substitute whatever you like the best but I recommend going with round and triangle crackers to give the look of the turkey feathers!
Tip!
While it may be tempting to go with just one type of cracker, it’s always fun to add a variety of flavors and textures to your board through crackers! Plus, that way if someone doesn’t like one kind of cracker they can still enjoy something else! We did pita crackers, round crackers, whole grain crackers, and butter crackers! You can typically get a box of crackers with a variety of options to save money!
- Cheeses – we used both cheese cubes and cheese slices for different purposes in this charcuterie board. The cubes make great fillers and the slices make great dividers for the feathers! I’ve included specific types of cheese (and other ingredients) that we included in the recipe card at the bottom of this post, but you can mix it up with your favorites!
- Charcuterie meats – we used two types of salami and pepperoni for the ribbons of charcuterie meat but again choose your favorites if you can’t find those!
- Orange – orange rinds were perfect for making the little ridges on the feathers! And the orange itself made a great snack while we were making this turkey board!
- Berries – blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries are perfect for a charcuterie board because they pair so well with the meat and cheese, plus they make great section fillers!
- Dried fruit – we added dried apricots and dried cranberries but mangos would also have been a great option!
- Face garnishes – we used candy eyes, a small piece of carrot, and just a little sun-dried tomato for the face!
Boards We Used
We used two different boards for this particular turkey charcuterie board – one big round one and one smaller round one – to differentiate a little. This is totally not necessary, I just happened to have the two boards and liked how the division looked. You can do it all on one single board!
How to make a Thanksgiving Turkey Board
This Thanksgiving charcuterie board is surprisingly easy to make. It’s really just recreating what you see in the picture above!
1 – Make Your Hummus Turkey
The first thing you’ll need to do is make the hummus turkey. You can see in the picture below that we used two different boards to give the turkey’s boy a little more height, but don’t worry about that – you can just use one!
Make the shape of a turkey’s head using the garlic hummus then add a small glass bowl filled with the red pepper hummus right at the bottom of the head.
Then finish it off by garnishing the turkey head with candy eyes, a little carrot slice, and a tomato giblet. Oh and don’t forget the turkey’s feet – some pecans right underneath the glass bowl!
2 – Add Outer Feathers
The next step is adding the outer row of feathers. It’s much easier to start on the outside and basically outline the turkey, then you’ll just need to fill in the feathers!
Start with the crackers closest to the turkey – three larger circle crackers topped with three smaller crackers.
Then add one long row of circle crackers topped with triangle crackers to make it look more like feathers!
Finally, add cheese slices and orange rinds as dividers for the rest of the interior feathers. You can use my pictures below to see how many and how we did this to get ideal spacing!
3 – Fill in the turkey feathers
Once you have all of your feathers outlined, it’s time to fill them in with the rest of your ingredients! Start closest to the hummus and carefully fill in the orange rinds with various berries and dried fruit.
Once that’s done, keep moving outwards adding more fruit and nuts to fill in the final gaps on the turkey’s main feathers before moving onto the exterior tail feathers.
Finally, finish it off by adding cheese cubes and ribbons of charcuterie meat folded up in between the cheese slices to finish the Thanksgiving charcuterie board. Make sure to keep your meat folds tight so that you can fit a decent amount on the plate but not too much that it looks overfilled and messy!
4 – Serve the Turkey Charcuterie Board
Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, you know how to make your very own Thanksgiving turkey charcuterie board!
Now it’s time to serve! I highly recommend adding two spoons for the two hummus varieties and some sort of tongs or serving utensils for the other charcuterie board ingredients!
Tips & Storage Info
Don’t make this board until close to when you’re planning to serve it. This board is a hard one to put back in the fridge without ruining the look of it, especially with the hummus in the center.
Luckily, it’s pretty easy to make if you follow my instructions so I recommend just taking 15 minutes to put it together right before serving.
If you do need to make it ahead of time and serve it later, I recommend wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap and placing flat into the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve. It’ll give you the best shot of everything not getting totally discombobulated!
Recipe FAQs
What kind of cheese did you use?
All of the exact ingredients that we used in this board are listed in the recipe card below.
How much do I need of each ingredient?
I’ve included generally how much we used for the board but it’ll totally depend on how big the board you’re using is AND if you’re planning to resupply items as they run out or just leave it as is.
More Thanksgiving Recipes
If you want something else fun to serve for Thanksgiving to go with this Thanksgiving charcuterie board, try one of these!
- Thanksgiving punch – the best Thanksgiving punch full of fall flavor!
- Turkey cookies – these darling turkey cookies uses a classic cookie as a base!
- Pumpkin crunch cake – one of our favorites, we make this every year!
- Cute Thanksgiving food – all sorts of festive Thanksgiving snacks!
- Custard pie – try something different than pumpkin pie this year with this classic fashioned staple!
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Thanksgiving Charcuterie Board
Ingredients
- Garlic roasted hummus
- Red pepper hummus
- Candy eyes
- Sun-dried tomato
- Carrot slice
- Mixed nuts, pistachios, and pecans
- Peppered salami, pepperoni, and salami slices
- Round crackers, pita crackers, whole grain crackers
- 1 large orange sliced and peeled
- Sliced manchego cheese
- Sharp cheddar cheese, colby cheese, and smoked gouda cheese cubes
- Strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries
- Dried apricots and dried cranberries
Instructions
- Make the shape of a turkey’s head using the garlic hummus then add a small glass bowl filled with the red pepper hummus right at the bottom of the head.Garlic roasted hummus, Red pepper hummus
- Then finish it off by garnishing the turkey head with candy eyes, a little carrot slice, and a tomato giblet.Candy eyes, Carrot slice, Sun-dried tomato
- Make rows of feathers using crackers. Start with the crackers closest to the turkey – three larger circle crackers topped with three smaller crackers.Then add one long row of circle crackers topped with triangle crackers to make it look more like feathers!Round crackers, pita crackers, whole grain crackers
- Add cheese slices and orange rinds as dividers for the rest of the interior feathers.Sliced manchego cheese, 1 large orange
- Start closest to the hummus and carefully fill in the orange rinds with various berries and dried fruit. Once that’s done, keep moving outwards adding more fruit and nuts to fill in the final gaps on the turkey’s main feathers before moving onto the exterior tail feathers.Mixed nuts, pistachios, and pecans, Strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, Dried apricots and dried cranberries
- Finish it off by adding cheese cubes and ribbons of charcuterie meat folded up in between the cheese slices to finish the Thanksgiving charcuterie board.Peppered salami, pepperoni, and salami slices, Sharp cheddar cheese, colby cheese, and smoked gouda cheese cubes
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