Ready to eat, drink, and be scary? Whip up this ghoulish Halloween charcuterie board.
Shaped like a skeleton, this vegan grazing board includes dairy-free cheese, pepperoni "intestines," creepy compound butter skulls, and a fougasse rib cage.
It’s sure to be the hit of your Halloween party!
“Creep it real” this spooky season with a vegan charcuterie board that’s sure to fright and delight.
This skull-cuterie has:
- Stuffed black olive eyes
- Crackers for shoulders and neck bone
- Pickled turnips for a heart
- Fougasse rib cage
- Vegan pepperoni for intestines
Sliced veggies, cornichons, grapes, vegan butter skulls, and non-dairy cheddar cheese pumpkins fill out the rest of this spook-tacular board.
Serve it at your pumpkin carving night, or nosh away in between greeting trick-or-treaters. Guaranteed to lift your spirits! 👻
(For even more party food ideas, check out these vegan Halloween recipes.)
In this post:
💀 Skull-cuterie ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need to make this recipe.
Vegan butter skulls: Homemade vegan compound butter skulls are filled with basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and garlic. Then they’re pressed into a skull silicone candy mold.
Pro tip: Make the butter skulls ahead and store in the freezer. Then pull them out when guests arrive. Frozen skulls hold their shape longer as they slowly soften.
Black olives: Canned pitted black olives are the skeleton’s eyeballs. Put two into the skull’s eye caverns, and the rest in a bowl for noshing.
Vegan cream cheese: Any plain vegan cream cheese works here, or go homemade with vegan feta cheese.
Vegan cheese slices: Any vegan cheddar cheese slices work here like Trader Joe’s, Violife, Miyoko’s, Follow Your Heart, or Daiya.
Bread and crackers: Water crackers are a nice color for the shoulder blades, and fougasse is a great shape for the skeleton’s rib cage. (I buy olive fougasse at Trader Joe’s. You can also check local artisan bakeries, or make it from scratch.)
Vegan pepperoni: Homemade vegan pepperoni is preferred, but store-bought also works.
Pickled veggies: Pickled turnips and cornichons. (I like to make my own pickled turnips, but you can also find them in Middle Eastern grocery stores.)
Veggies & fruit: Watermelon radishes, rainbow carrots, bell pepper slices, and grapes.
How to make a Halloween charcuterie board
This section shows how to make this recipe at a glance with process photos of the steps. For complete ingredient amounts & instructions, keep scrolling to the recipe card below.
1. Make a batch of vegan butter skulls for guests to slather on the warmed fougasse rib cage.
2. Use a butter knife or piping bag to fill black olives with vegan cream cheese for eyes.
If you like, put two filled olives into the eye cavities of the skull. (They’re easier to place if you cut the olives in half width-wise for a flat surface area.)
3. Use a small pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter to punch out pumpkins from the vegan cheese slices.
4. Put together your Halloween charcuterie board with a plastic skull and marble cheese board, then finish with toppings.
Make it your own
Personalize this vegan charcuterie board by varying the ingredients.
Replace olive fougasse rib cage with breadsticks, soft pretzel sticks, or sliced baguette (angled and fanned out).
Vary the flavor of vegan cheese slices with American, provolone, smoked gouda, or pepper jack.
Replace black olives with any pitted olives like ripe green olives or Castelvetrano.
Replace plain vegan cream cheese with a flavored non-dairy cream cheese, vegan feta cheese, or use olives that are already stuffed with pimentos, garlic, almonds, red peppers, or jalapeños.
Level up your olives by making fried olives instead.
Replace pepperoni “intestines” with canned dolmas (spread into rows).
Vary the vegetables with any of the following: cauliflower florets, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, cucumber slices, or mini peppers.
Vary the fruits with any of the following: orange slices, blueberries, or blackberries.
Vary the pickled vegetables with any of the following: pickled jalapenos, pickled watermelon rind with dill, pickled red onions, or pickled shallots.
Add to your spread with hummus and pita chip ghosts or Halloween dip with spider web.
Make ahead instructions
If you’re making this Halloween charcuterie board for a party, plan ahead by making and prepping the following up to two days ahead:
- Prepare and freeze vegan compound butter skulls.
- Make pickled turnips.
- Fill black olives with non-dairy cream cheese.
- Cut non-dairy cheese slices into pumpkin shapes.
- Slice bell pepper and watermelon radishes, and peel carrots.
- Slice vegan pepperoni.
If you’re prepping the veggies early, store sliced radishes and peeled carrots in cold water in the fridge to keep them crisp until you’re ready to assemble the board.
If you try this recipe and love it, let me know! Leave a comment and ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the comment section below. It truly makes my day and is such a help!
📖 Recipe
Halloween charcuterie board (vegan skeleton edition)
Ingredients
- 30 vegan butter skulls
- ½ cup pitted black olives
- 1 to 2 Tablespoons vegan cream cheese
- 12 water crackers
- 1 loaf fougasse bread warmed
- 24 slices vegan pepperoni
- ½ cup pickled turnips
- 3 slices vegan cheese cheddar, cut into small pumpkin shapes with a cookie cutter
- ¼ to ½ cup cornichons
- 1 watermelon radish peeled and thinly sliced
- 13 thin rainbow carrots or standard orange carrots, peeled
- ½ bell pepper cut into slices
- 1 bunch grapes
Instructions
- Make a batch of vegan butter skulls. Refrigerate or freeze them until you're ready to add them to the charcuterie board.
- Drain canned black olives. Transfer them to a clean kitchen towel to blot dry. (It's harder to stuff olives while they're damp.) Then use a butter knife or piping bag to fill the olives. When you've finished, put them into a small serving bowl.(If you're going to put olive eyes into your plastic skull, cut two of the olives in half width-wise. It's easier for them to lay flat and stay in place without a round back.)
- Put a medium-sized charcuterie-style board on your dining table. Just above the charcuterie board, place a plastic skull. Then add a row of water crackers across the top and just down the middle of the board for shoulders and a neck.
- Place the warmed fougasse in the rib cage area. Just below that, make two rows of pepperoni slices to make up the intestines.
- Put a small bowl of pickled turnips on top of the fougasse where the heart should be. Just above the fougasse, place the small bowl of stuffed black olives. (If desired, put two of the black olives into the plastic skull's eye sockets.)
- Fill in the rest of the board with vegan cheddar cheese pumpkin cut-outs, cornichons, watermelon radish slices, rainbow carrots, bell pepper slices, and grapes.
- Finally, put the vegan butter skulls onto one or two small serving plates, and serve near the fougasse with butter knives.
Sharon
What fun and innovative things to try to celebrate Halloween. I love the artistic and creative ideas.
Cadry Nelson
Thank you, Sharon! That’s nice to hear.