Healthy Road Trip Snacks: How to Make a Travel Charcuterie Board

Road Trip season is officially here and healthy road trip snacks are a MUST. What better way to snack than a charcuterie board for the car, or what we like to call a "car-cuterie" board. Here are the best things to put on your Travel Charcuterie Board as well as expert tips and tricks to keep everything fresh and delicious for the drive. Shall we?

Explore More

• Healthy Road Trip Snacks You Need for a Travel Ready Charcuterie Board
• Pro Tips and Techniques for Taking a Charcuterie Board on the Road
• Road Trip Charcuterie Board Recipe

The healthiest snacks are always fruits, vegetables and good protein, and is it a coincidence that those also happen to be the ingredients for a great cheese and charcuterie board? I think not! So it just makes sense to make them into a travel-size board to take with you and snack from it along the way.

You could put together your usual for a cheese and charcuterie board on a smaller-sized board and call it a day (trip), but there are a few things to keep in mind that will make the experience optimal for the car.

The key to a car-ready cheese and charcuterie board is "easy to eat," which is the case for the small, poppable things you'd put on a cheese board, but there are small differences between sitting around the dinner table with party guests, and sitting strapped into the passenger seat. Certain ingredients and how you prep them will be easier, cleaner, and better than others.

Healthy Road Trip Snacks You Need for a Travel Ready Charcuterie Board

Fresh ingredients for your Car-cuterie Board, pick a few from the list of "easy-to-eat" fresh fruits and vegetables below:

• Strawberries, green tops removed and large berries sliced in half
• Raspberries and blackberries
• Blueberries
• Grapes, cut into small clusters or de-stemmed
• Apples, sliced
• Peaches and nectarines in the summer, sliced
• Tangerines, peeled and left whole
• Carrots, cut into sticks or chips
• Celery, cut into sticks
• Cucumber, sliced into chips or spears
• Sugar snap peas
• Radishes, quartered
• Optional, if you're really going for the 'gram: fresh herbs and edible flowers for garnish!

Pantry/dry Ingredients for your Car-cuterie Board, pick any or all of the below

• Apricots, my favorite are the "slab" style, already sliced in half and dried
• Dates
• Dried figs
• Prunes, especially for those of us who experience "travel-gut" iykyk
• Candied oranges and candied kumquats
• Almonds
• Pistachios, no shell to make them easier to eat
• Walnuts
• Olives, pitted of course

Best cheeses for car snacking:

• Mini Brie cheeses, like Petite Breakfast Brie from Marin French, brie that is slightly more firm and no rind so it's easy to pick up and eat
• Bloomy-rind cheese, sliced in advance, like Mt. Tam Triple Cream from Cowgirl Creamery
• Semi-firm like Truffle Toma from Point Reyes
• Firm like San Joaquin Gold from Fiscalini Farmstead, sliced or crumbled into large pieces
• Cheese crisps like parmesan frico
• Monterey Jack, a California original, sliced or cut into cubes
• Cheddar, sliced or cut into cubes
• Feta, out of brine and cut into cubes

Extras:

• Olive oil sea salt crackers
• Whole-grain or seed crackers
• Prune jam, fig jam, or other sweet spread
• Pickled prunes
• Shelf-stable or dry charcuterie/salumi

Pro Tips and Techniques for Taking a Charcuterie Board on the Road

Use a Board with a Lid and Handles. You know I always encourage you to use things you already have rather than buying a product just for a single purpose because yay underconsumption, but in this case, a charcuterie board with a lid, specifically designed to take on the go, is helpful! Here are some recs:

• Charcuterie Board with Lid and Top Handle. This is the one I have, a bamboo board divided into compartments and with handles so you can carry it
• Charcuterie Board with Lid. Similar, but without the top handle. Every once in a while you can find this exact brand at CostCo
• Rectangle Storage Container. Works just as well, and doubles as food storage when you're at home.

Prep Everything in Advance. This goes without saying, but wash, prep, peel, slice any fruits and vegetables the night before you leave, and keep it refrigerated until just before you leave.

What NOT to Take. These are suggestions, but of course, I have violated all of these at some point.

• nothing fragile like raspberries
• nothing "stainy" like berries and cherries
• no fruits with pits or seeds that create car-trash like cherries or olives with pits
• nothing that requires a knife to peel or cut, unless you do in advance
• nothing messy, drippy, requires a napkin/cleanup like honey
• aren't too oily or have cheese flavoring that will get messy
• when it comes to cheese, better to stay from highly aromatic styles like strong blue cheeses unless everyone in the car appreciates the funk. You'd be surprised how MUCH STRONGER the aroma is in the warmth and enclosed space of a car!

Utensils and Extras You Might Need:

• Hand sanitizer or wipes, since you'll likely be using your hands to eat. Keep both of these in the car all the time anyway!
• Paper towels, for clean up
• Small baggies to collect trash/compost, though you shouldn't have too much since you'll have prepped it all off!
• Compostable forks or picks to pick up the food if you don't want to use your hands. These are great for parties too.

California is Always in Season, for Fruits, Veges, and Healthy Road Trip Snacks!

Aside from the very obvious fact that I live here in the Golden State, I love California for its produce, both the variety across the seasons and the sheer volume. Because of the state's long, north-south geographical shape and varied topography, California has multitudes of growing climates that support not only different crops suited to different regions, but the same crop in different regions in different seasons. Was that a lot of words? Suffice it to say that California grows a lot of everything all the time.

For example, berries grow in northern and central regions of California in the warmth of spring/summer, and continue to grow through the winter in southern California. That means berries, along with all the brassicas, leafy greens, carrots, most citrus, and certain other crops are in season and available to the rest of the country year-round.

You know what else is available from California year round for your Healthy Road Trip Snacks? Strawberries, dried fruits, nuts, and olives!

Speaking of...My (now annual) agri-tour with my pals at California Grown was in San Luis Obispo this past Spring. We met farmers and learned about crops that grow in the Central Coast region like berries and brassicas at CityFarmSlo, olives for olive oil at Pasolivo, and of course, wine at Austin Hope Winery.

For a visual guide to the seasonality of key crops in California check out California Grown's Eat the Seasons chart. You can download and print it. And check out this article for more information and nerdy statistics on California-grown produce.

Best California Agritours

Need and idea for a road trip? How about an agri-tour! As a member of the content creator team for California Grown, I've had the enormous privilege of going on several trips to visit agriculture and wine regions throughout the state. Peep below to learn more:

• Central Valley, CA agritour with sweet potatoes, pomegranate, persimmons, dairy farms and cheese, olive oil, and Imperial Valley salad greens, with a recipe for Autumn Persimmon 'Caprese'
• Monterey, CA Agritour with Ocean Mist artichokes, Lakeside Organics greens, and Far West Fungi Mushrooms, with a recipe for How to Cook Lion's Mane Mushrooms
• San Joaquin Valley, CA agritour with dates, figs, prunes, raisins, pumpkins, and kiwi—yes kiwi! with a recipe for Sicilian-style Cauliflower Steaks with Raisins and Pistachios
• Santa Barbara, CA, a wine tasting guide and a recipe for Salade Niçoise
• Santa Cruz, CA with a recipe for California Endless Summer Rolls with Avocado and Cucumber
• Temecula, CA agritour with avocados, blueberries, and of course, wine

Best Cheese and Charcuterie Ideas

Tools and Equipment

• Charcuterie Board with lid and handle, perfect for travel
• Mini mason jars for jams and spreads
• Mason jar lids, toss the annoying 2-piece metal lids and use these air-tight ones
• Mini forks, disposable and compostable
• Re-usable silicone storage bags, to save anything you don't finish in the minibar at your hotel!
• Flour-sack kitchen towels, as napkins and for clean-up
• Japanese mandoline
• Chef's knife worth every bourgie penny
• Wooden cutting board, extra large surface area and sturdy that I use every day.

Friends from California Grown share their best recipes, too. Check them out below:

• ... from California Grown
• ... by Alison of A Girl Defloured
• ... by Becky of Baking the Goods
• ... by Irvin of Eat the Love
• ... by Jaine of Dinner at Jaine's
• ... by Aida of Salt & Wind
• ... by Tahiri of Tahiri Flowers
• ... by Meg of This Mess is Ours

^{This post sponsored by California Grown. All opinions are our own. Thank you for supporting our partners who keep The Delicious Life well fed.}