7 Seasonal Items for Your Summer Cheese Plate

With summer in full swing, and the intersection of grilling season and harvest season, now is the time to approach styling your cheese plate with a seasonal outlook, and an open mind. Traditional cheese plate components include fruit, vegetables, charcuterie, nuts, and crackers, but you can easily surpass the more typical components with the abundance of items that hit their stride this time of year. Better still, when the heat index doesn’t inspire much in the way of cooking, your hearty summer cheese plate can easily masquerade as your summer lunch or dinner. (We all do this, right?)

Beyond just summertime produce, start by scouring your farmer’s market for great seasonal, farmstead components like jams, spreads, honey, and breads or crackers. And consider the following seven items that you might not immediately think of for your cheese plate, but that definitely contribute a strong sense of summer flair.

Pickles

Pickled vegetables by Anna Armbrust on Pixabay

Even conventional store bought cucumber pickles could find a home on a thoughtful cheese plate, but now is the time to channel your inner homesteader and consider what bounties of summer are worth preserving. Pickling is ridiculously easy to accomplish at home, as in this recipe for quick pickled onions, and just about anything that comes out of the garden is fair game for the same approach, from asparagus to zucchini. The acidity in pickled produce can work with cheeses in a variety of ways, whether emphasizing the tanginess of goat varieties, contrasting the sweetness of aged goudas, or cutting the richness of triple crèmes. Emily Delaney’s vibrant summer cheese plate pairs pickled green beans—also known as dilly beans—with burrata, Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda, and Cypress Grove’s Humboldt Fog, a California stalwart that treats soft goat cheese with a layer of vegetable ash.

Pesto

For many, pesto is the signature flavor of summer, when basil and other herbs start growing with the ferocity of weeds. If your cheese plate is sporting cherry tomatoes and any variety of fresh mozzarella, then basil pesto already has familiar friends. Herbaceous, garlicky, and bright, pesto is a great match for any young cheese that provides a similar blank slate as mozzarella; for a more wildcard approach, look for Spain’s Capricho de Cabra, an easy-going, spreadable goat cheese that lacks the angularity of certain goat selections. Consider other varieties of pesto for additional intrigue. Arugula pesto, for example, can help emphasize peppery notes in cheeses across the stylistic spectrum: Camembert de Châtelain, a pasteurized camembert from Normandy available in the U.S.; Kunik, a triple crème from Nettle Meadow Farms in New York that utilizes both goat’s milk and cow’s cream; and Gorgonzola Piccante, Italy’s spicy, peppery blue.

Melon

We’ve already covered pairing watermelon with brined cheeses, a summertime match made in heaven whether together in a salad or on a cheese plate. Anything sturdy and salty, like feta, can not only mingle with watermelon, but cantaloupe and honeydew as well. In Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese, author Tenaya Darlington also recommends melon and prosciutto as easy matches for baby-faced mozzarella. Taking it a step further for an Italian-inspired cheese plate, wrap that tender prosciutto around those cantaloupe slices, accessorize with semolina grissini and marinated olives, and get a variety of Italian cheeses on board. In addition to staples like mozzarella or pecorino, try a dense and earthy Mitica Toma Piemontese Riserva, a plump and creamy Casatica di Buffala, and a nutty, sturdy Piave Vecchio.

Corn

Anyone familiar with NYC cheese and wine cafe Casellula will know that popcorn features regularly on their cheese plates as a singular pairing for a variety of cheeses, but that’s not where the possibilities of corn end, especially in summer when its natural sweetness peaks. Slice cooked corn cobs into three-quarter-inch rounds and now you have a cheese plate component that not only heralds summer with its seasonality but also looks like miniature suns on your plate. Let a gentle, buttery cheese—The Farm at Doe Run Seven Sisters for example—be the butter to those kernels. Or opt for a ramekin of maque choux—a Cajun corn relish with bacon and peppers—for something also buttery and lightly smoky such as Idiazábal. And of course popcorn can provide a whimsical touch on a lighthearted plate, and is a fun match for a gooey, washed-rind cheese redolent of boiled peanuts like Cato Corner Farm’s Hooligan.

Grilled Vegetables

There’s no rule that says that veggies on a cheese plate must be raw and unadulterated. (See “pickles” above.) If your summer grill game is strong and you hardly need a reason to fire it up, today’s grilled vegetables can have an appearance on tomorrow’s cheese plate, and even have the power to tilt it more into the hearty antipasto platter category. Vegetables such as summer squash, peppers, and eggplant are crowd pleasers and partner any Italian cheese you’d invite to an antipasto party. Grilled mushrooms have a meaty vibe that can play off of some of the aromatic, beefier cheeses; go for broke with an oozy Epoisses. Much in the way that peated Scotch is a surprisingly good matchup for certain cheeses—a lesson learned at our sister site Alcohol Professor—a lingering char on any veggies from the grill provide a smoky counterpoint for an indulgent Brillat Savarin or a spiky Forme D’Ambert.

Deviled Eggs

Photo by Rosalind Chang on Unsplash — Photo by Rosalind Chang on Unsplash

The ultimate summer cookout snack, deviled eggs are another hearty component for cheese plates that function as actual meals. With eggs in the mix, you can easily call it a summer brunch plate, and populate it with other brunchy items like bagel pieces and smoked salmon. Any cheese that you’d consider putting in an omelet—which isn’t ruling out many—has a friend in eggs: Bleu Mont Bandaged Cheddar is an elevated classic, Four Fat Fowl St. Stephen brings the richness if you typically prefer a million-dollar omelet with brie, and Jasper Hill’s Bayley Hazen Blue is a fudgy, subdued blue that plays nicely with others.

Barbecued Ribs

Take inspiration from That Cheese Plate’s Marissa Mullen, who has a no-fear approach to putting bombastic items such as buffalo wings, grilled steak, or even whole roasted chickens on thematic plates. Your summer cheese plate is another way to repurpose leftovers from your weekend grilling session into an easy, no-heat weekday dinner. Just as macaroni and cheese is a classic side for barbecued meats, so are barbecued meats a perfect component for an inventive summer cheese plate. I wouldn’t go much larger than baby backs for this, but whether your ribs are smoked or grilled, sauced or not, they’re just not that far off of usual cheese plate residents like salami and other charcuterie. Put smoky ribs next to cheeses with meaty flavors like Taleggio and other Taleggio-inspired big mouths such as Jacob and Brichford Ameribella or Meadow Creek Dairy’s Grayson. Ribs with a spicy sauce and can do the “opposites attract” dance with aged cheeses that show sugar development: Coolea Farmhouse Cheese, Thistle Hill Farm Tarentaise, and Cypress Grove’s Midnight Moon.

Macarons

Macarons aren’t necessarily a summertime thing on their own—they have a tendency to make appearances on Valentine’s Day boards—but for a unique sweet component to add to a summer cheese plate, they also have a lot going for them. Their lightness doesn’t weigh anything down, they can bring any fruit or herb flavor you desire to the proceeding, and the vibrant assortment of available colors gets you painting with the full palette to match your other seasonal components. Find macaron pairings with cheeses that like fruity wines and won’t be out of tune on a sweet-forward dessert plate: nutty L’Etivaz, buttery Mahón, decadent Délice de Bourgogne, custardy Harbison, or fruity Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

Visit our Pairings section for more content on unique cheese matchups.