French Cheese Plate (Plateau de Fromage)

French Cheese Plate, a Plateau de Fromage in French, is the absolute best! If you are a cheese lover, you need to learn how to make your own French cheese board now. Serve as an appetizer, with cocktails or as dinner.

What is a French Cheese Plate?

A Plateau de Fromage is a selection of French cheeses served together, often paired with a selection of fruits, nuts, jams and bread. Also, typically served with a tasty French wine. We take our cheese very seriously here in France. The French are obsessed with cheese!

What to include on a French cheese plate

You can select what to include on our cheese plate based on your own personal preferences. The goal is to make sure that everything you choose to go on the cheese board goes well together. You will need to consider the flavor profiles of each item on the cheese board to make sure they are complimentary.

Don’t worry – it’s easier than it sounds, and if all else fails, just choose the exact same cheeses we’ve included for you in the “French cheese example” portion of this post!

You will need

• A selection of cheeses – we’ll share more about how to select the French cheeses for your French cheese board further down in this post
• Fruit – fresh or dried fruit pairs really well with French cheeses
• Nuts – some great options are walnuts and hazelnuts
• Lettuce or other greens – choose your favorite lettuce or even add some micro-greens to your cheese board

Selection of French cheeses

The most important choice you will make when planning your cheese plate is the selection of cheeses to serve.

There are some general rules which I share below, but you can absolutely move away from these and bring your own creativity to your cheese board. Make it your own!

A classic French plateau de fromage includes

• Hard cheeses
• Soft cheeses
• Goat cheeses
• Blue cheeses

As a general rule, we would recommend having at least 3 cheeses on your cheese plate and selecting from the categories above.

Classic French Cheeseboard Example

There are several different ways to combine cheeses to make the perfect cheese board.

The cheese plate below features

• Neufchatel
• Roquefort
• Compte
• Tomme
• Chèvre cendrée

Pro tips

• Include a “surprise cheese”. Try to surprise your guests by including a special cheese they may have never heard of.
• Stay away from industrial cheeses when you can. The best French cheeses will include AOC (Appellations d’origine côntrolée or AOP (Appellations d’origine protégée. These specific designations are given by the French government to establish standards of production and quality. According to International trade agreements, these French cheeses carry these designations when they are exported throughout the World, so you should be able to find them at specialty stores near you if you in many part of the world.
• Vary shapes and colors. If possible, vary the shapes and colors you select for your cheese board. Although this obviously won’t impact the taste of the cheeses, it will be more visually appealing.

How to make a French Plateau de Fromage

• Step 1 – Decide which cheeses you will feature on your cheese board.
• Step 2 – Select the garnishes you will serve with the cheeses.
• Step 3 – Choose the perfect bread to pair with your cheeses.
• Step 4 – You can serve the cheese whole or serve a generous slice of each cheese on the board, depending on how many cheeses you will be serving and how big your cheese board is.
• Step 5 – Spread the cheeses out on the board.
• Step 6 – Mix in the lettuce, nuts and fruits and anything else you will be adding too your cheese plate.
• Step 7 – Serve the jams in little cups with spoons.

The best jams to pair with French cheese

• Onion jam
• Blueberry jam

Garnishes

When choosing what to serve with your variety of cheeses, make sure you are selecting other foods that will enhance the flavor of the cheese, rather than overpower it.

How to serve a French cheese plate

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Put your cheese plate out on its own or serve it with a variety of French appetizers.

We recommend serving the cheeses and garnishes on a gorgeous wood board. There are several Etsy sellers that sell gorgeous handmade cheese boards. We love this round cheese board for a traditional look. If you want a more modern look, a handmade marble cheeseboard is lovely as well.

When to serve a cheese plate in France

Here in France we typically enjoy cheese at the end of a meal, just before dessert. We love serving a plateau de fromage as part of a delicious meal just before the sweets.

It could also be part of an apéro dinatoire, which is basically having drinks and lots of delicious things to snack on, that together, replace dinner. Here in Paris, you can enjoy an apéro dinatoire in a bar or restaurant or at a friend’s house.

Bread

Cheese tastes best with bread. Make sure you serve a selection of bread with your cheese plate. We love serving baguette, sourdough bread, any kind of grainy bread (like a Norvégien here in Paris). Select your favorite bread, or variety of breads, and cut them into thick slices to serve.

Wines to serve with your Plateau de Fromage

Similar to when choosing garnishes for your plateau de fromage, you want to make sure to serve a wine that enhances the flavor of each of the cheeses, rather than overpowering them.

With the selection of French cheeses we featured in this post, a mild red wine would pair really nicely. Go for a Burgundy Pinot Noir, a Brouilly or a Chinon. We recommend serving red wine with cheese, but if you prefer to serve white wine, go for a Sancerre, Pouilly Fumé or a Chablis.

More French Recipes

• Magret de Canard
• Chicken Chasseur
• Flammekueche (Alsatian Pizza)
• French Chestnut Soup
• Provencal Chicken
• Tartiflette

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