How To Make An American Flag Snack Board With Just Aldi Ingredients

Every occasion needs a good cheeseboard, and there's no better way to celebrate a holiday than with a themed version. American patriotic holidays like Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day are filled with quintessential American foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, and apple pie, but the best way to fully embrace the patriotic spirit is with red, white, and blue. While that might mean upgrading a fruit salad or setting out coordinated popsicles, it can also mean crafting your usual charcuterie board into an array of stars and stripes. An American flag snack board, arranged with layers of red meats, white cheeses, and blue fruits, is a fun way to upgrade your usual appetizer go-to into something festive and fun. The best part? It can also be made using ingredients from the same store.

Aldi is having a moment, and it's largely because of the store's commitment to high-quality products for super-affordable prices. The German grocer keeps prices low by stocking shelves largely with its own, in-house product, minimizing the expense of keeping private labels on the shelves. This can take some getting used to for first-time Aldi shoppers, especially if you aren't sure what to look for. That's why I created this guide on which products to look for when building a patriotic snack board — so you can be ready for your next holiday gathering without needing to visit any other store. Prices may vary.

It sounds easy enough to go into Aldi, pick out a few red, white, and blue ingredients, and throw them together on a rectangular-shaped serving board. The truth, though, is that it will save you time and money to plan ahead. First, grab a board. Choose a rectangular shape matched to the size of your gathering. A two-to-four person board will be a smaller, 1-foot by ½-foot board, while a four-to-six person serving will require a 1½-foot by 1-foot measurement. Larger 10-to-12 person gatherings can be done on 3½-foot wide boards. If you can't find larger boards, you can also refill smaller boards throughout your gathering as their contents get eaten. You may even be able to find a suitable board at Aldi.

With the board picked out, measure the stripes to determine how many ingredients you will need. You'll want about 1½ to 2 inches per stripe — so a board that is 1 foot tall will have six to seven stripes, or about three white ingredients and three or four red. Some will stretch across the entire board, while others will share space with the blue. The blue will take up a little less than a quarter of the board. When planning ingredients, have an idea of which ones will be used as the bottom stripes and plan to buy a little bit extra of those ingredients.

This snack board is essentially a charcuterie board made up of cured meats, cheeses, and some fruits. When choosing the variety of ingredients, try to pair one each with another ingredient on the board. For example, apples are delicious with tangy cheeses like cheddar, and strawberries work well with soft cheeses like brie.

Flavored and marinated cheeses pair well on crackers with cured meats, while fruits like blueberries are excellent for pairing with sweet dips for a dessert section of your board. You could choose something like cannoli dip to pair with your blueberries. Try not to choose an ingredient without something to pair it with, especially if you are planning to serve the board with crackers.

For my snack board, I used Aldi's salami and provolone snack packs for two of the red stripes and the white stars, each snack pack costing $2.89 for a total just under $12. From there, I used strawberries and apples for two more red stripes for just under $3, and Aldi's own white cheddar cheese, garden vegetable soft cheese, and marinated mozzarella for about $14. For the blue, I chose blueberries, which kept the total price of the board right around $30.

I can't eat charcuterie without a crunchy cracker base. While you could add the crackers to the board as one of the white stripes, crackers are usually brown or tan in color, and won't read quite as patriotic as truly white ingredients like white cheddar and mozzarella do. To remedy this, add crackers to the side of the board in small bowls so that guests can build their bites using the ingredients on the board. If you don't have bowls that work, you can also set up another board or plate with only crackers, arranging them in neat rows so that they look tidy next to the assembled flag-inspired board.

Aldi has plenty of crackers to choose from, and many of them mimic options at other grocery stores. Choose your crackers according to the ingredients on your board. Hard, tangy, or savory cheeses like cheddar work well with standard wheat crackers, while mozzarella works well on crackers flavored with rosemary or sea salt.

Soft cheeses like brie and camembert pair well with Aldi's sweet crackers like cranberry & sea salt or raisin & rosemary, while spicy meats like hot salami pair well with Aldi's flatbread crackers. If you have a dip on your board (like hummus), you can also consider Aldi's pita crackers.

Anything American-flag themed needs stars to go with the stripes, and a cheese board is no exception. The easiest way to make stars is with a star-shaped cookie cutter, which you can find at most craft stores or online. You may even be able to find one at Aldi. Any size will work here — you aren't fitting 50 stars onto the small square of blueberries, so any amount of stars will get the idea across. Once you have a cookie cutter, you can choose the cheese to use.

Because my cookie cutter is about 2 inches across, I used the provolone that came with the snack packs for my cheesy stars. You can also use plain white cheddar or one of the many highly-ranked Aldi cheeses, such as the funky and tangy Lustenberger 1862. If you can't find a star-shaped cookie cutter, you can also slice your own stars using a paring knife and some patience (and some artistic skill).

Once you have your ingredients bought, your platter picked out, and your stars shaped, you can build the snack board. First, slice and dice all of the components into the same size and shape so that each stripe looks about the same size. This also makes it easier to eat, too — you can use a toothpick to grab a mozzarella ball with a cherry tomato, or pile a cheese cube onto a cracker with a thin slice of meat. Once you have everything prepped, you can assemble the ingredients into a flag shape.

Use a rubber spatula to spread the sweet dip of your choice onto the left hand corner in the shape of a rectangle and arrange the blueberries on top. This prevents the blueberries from moving around and falling from the platter, especially while transporting. From there, arrange each row of red and white, starting with red at the top and alternating colors as you work down the board. Fold the meat into ruffles by folding them in half, then into quarters, and pressing them into a line tightly so they hold their shape. Voilà! You have a patriotic charcuterie board.

Cheeseboards are a host's dream because they are easy to prepare. Plus, they can be stored in the fridge until you're ready to eat them. The cheeseboard needs to be chilled while storing, and to avoid the meats and cheeses from drying out in the refrigerator, the board needs to be covered tightly.

The easiest way to do this is with plastic wrap, which can be wrapped around the board and sealed until it's time to dig in. The board can be made and stored up to three days in advance, depending on your ingredients and fridge space. And be careful of fruit molding or marinated cheeses spreading oil onto neighboring ingredients. You can always keep those elements off the board in separate containers and add them when you pull out the charcuterie board to serve to guests.

If cheese and crackers aren't your thing, Aldi offers plenty of other snacks that can be swapped onto the board. You could do an antipasto board, alternating cherry tomatoes with cheese-stuffed tortelloni. You could make a breakfast board, alternating Aldi's fluffy croissants and powdered white doughnuts with strawberries and raspberries. Feel free to utilize the vast array of baked goods that Aldi offers. You could also amp up the heat, making it a spice-forward board with Aldi's ghost pepper salami, Sriracha gouda, and jalapeño artichoke dip.

Aldi is a good one-stop-shop for snack boards of any kind, offering a plethora of sweet, savory, crunchy, and dip-able options in every aisle. The choices are endless, and with a little bit of planning, you can bring any any red, white, and blue board you can think of to life with just one grocery trip to Aldi.