Hi all! I am making a charcuterie board for a friend’s birthday and we have a pregnant guest. Looking for recommendations for pregnancy safe options to add to the board.
Old Board picture for attention. This was not a pregnancy safe board.
by JotaroACNH
6 Comments
Beautiful!
It depends how much risk they’re willing to take, honestly, so it’s really down to the individual.
I personally don’t eat any deli meats or cured meats during pregnancy and I’m specific about cheese. Like, I google any and all cheese I want to eat to be sure it’s considered a safe, hard cheese.
My tip would be to first find out how seriously this person takes the food recommendations if you can, before you put yourself to a bunch of trouble.
Second tip would be to make a separate board that’s totally pregnancy safe to avoid any potential cross contamination. This board would likely have no meats at all, make sure all the cheeses are hard (or otherwise safe, i.e. made with pasteurized milk — like Boursin is safe), and make sure to wash all the fruits/veg carefully.
If someone made me a pregnancy safe charcuterie board, I would love them for life. You’re a sweet and kind person for thinking of this!
Thats a hard question. You should ask, and let them know they might want to bring a safe snack.
In general: nuts are usually ok, hard and commercial cheeses (keep the labels/wrappers in the kitchen so they can check), you could offer use of the microwave to zap some of the meat if they like. Pickles are a classic for pregnancy, maybe something hot like quiche bites from the oven? Deviled eggs perhaps if they aren’t avoiding mayo?
Cheeses that are pasteurized are ok but some pregnant women still avoid them. Meats have to be cooked. When I was pregnant, I enjoyed using a pillsbury crescent roll dough to make a ring sandwich with salami, prosciutto, provolone and pickled hot peppers – not all pregnant women are comfortable with it though.
Baked pinwheels made of puff pastry (various fillings) would be fine. Same with spanokopita. So maybe add in some of those baked apps as an alternative.
A baked dip would be amazing to add – baked salmon or crab dip, baked spinach artichoke dip, etc.
I would keep wrappers of the cheese so you can show the pregnant guests that they’re pasteurized and keep small containers of foods to be heated aside to heat on demand for them if you’re able to. Some may not want to eat food that’s been out for a while. However, some people don’t care and will eat it no matter what!
Definitely see if you can get the pregnant guest’s contact information. Since you’re wanting to create something inclusive of what they can/will eat rather than something for multiple pregnant folks, they’ll have the best insight.
You are wanting to cater the contents of the board to meet the needs of 1 person? Don’t do it! If that person can’t eat something on the board then they can bring their own snacks.