Charcuterie Board Pizza

This charcuterie board-inspired pizza is topped with a drizzle of honey, a layer of thinly sliced pears, chopped walnuts, brie, and, of course, your favorite charcuterie.

It's everything you love about charcuterie boards, served up on a crisp-bottomed and lightly blistered pizza dough. So good as an appetizer, though it's sweet enough you could even serve it as a dessert pizza!

If you're looking for a dessert pizza that truly suits a sweet tooth, make sure you check out my Homemade Nutella Pizza!

Charcuterie Board Pizza

I am a little bit obsessed with this charcuterie board inspired pizza right now. I've made half a dozen of them in testing and every time I am just delighted at how good they turn out.

The pears on this pizza in particular are an absolute treat. They're sliced so thin that, in the heat of the oven, they melt and almost caramelize into the drizzle of honey, creating a thin sauce-like layer of pear under the melty brie and salty charcuterie.

The brie bubbles and melts beautifully onto the surface of the pizza dough, and you don't even have to remove the rind to use it which is a real win, imo.

The chopped walnuts add some much needed nuttiness to cut through the sweetness of the pear and honey and the saltiness of the cheese and meat. They also get a bit toasty in the oven which is just so nice.

I really wasn't sure how this was going to turn out the first time I tried it. What surprised me the most was how much my pear-indifferent husband loved it.

Charcuterie board pizza really is just such a good combination of flavors and textures for a pizza. It's more about the sum of the parts, you know?

If you like this charcuterie board pizza, you may also want to try my hot honey pizza (the hot honey would also be great on this pizza) or my arugula and prosciutto pizza which also uses a popular cut of charcuterie!

arranging your charcuterie board pizza

My original vision for this pizza was that of an artfully arranged charcuterie board that just happened to be on top of a pizza. Unfortunately, that dream was quickly dashed by the realization that, while it might make for a cool photo, it would be completely impractical for anyone interested in actually eating the pizza. A good pizza should have the toppings evenly distributed, imo.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't take care to arrange your pizza toppings so they look beautiful. That's part of the fun of making a charcuterie board, after all. Charcuterie board pizza is no different.

While there's always a bit of unpredictability in how your pizza will bubble up in the oven, it's worth taking the time to make this pizza look nice before it goes in.

• Arrange the thinly sliced pears in a spiral out from the center of the pizza or tessellated across the surface. Try not to overlap them at all.
• Arrange the slices of brie in evenly spaced concentric rings so you get maximum cheese coverage when it melts.
• Drizzle the honey in two wide intersecting zig zags or in a wide spiral from the outside in.

choosing the right charcuterie

You can use whatever your preferred charcuterie is for this, but here's what I've tested and how it reacts in the oven:

• Thinly sliced prosciutto: Works great, but tear it into smaller pieces or they will slide off all in one bite.
• Thinly sliced Sopressata: This is my favorite. It's the right amount of salty, with just enough fat in it to crisp up in the oven without turning your pizza into a greasy puddle.
• Thinly sliced chorizo: In terms of taste, chorizo packs the most punch, but it's also a bit greasier than Sopressata and prosciutto, which means a greasier pizza. Less is more if you're using chorizo!
• Pepperoni cups: These taste great and have excellent crispy edges, but also add a lot of grease and just don't look as pretty on the finished pizza as the larger cuts do (see below).

If you used a different type of charcuterie, leave a comment and let me know how it went for you!

shaping your pizza dough

Whatever kind of pizza dough you use, I swear by this tip to shape your dough and let it rest in a round deli container in the fridge for a few hours before stretching it. This helps it keep its round shape while you stretch. Then, take it out of the fridge 30-60 minutes before you stretch it.

Read more in my blog post: How to hand stretch pizza dough.

Practical Tips & Recipe Notes

• I used 280 gram balls of my basic overnight thin crust pizza dough to give them as much of a sturdy base as I could. I hand stretched the dough about 12-14" wide.
• As always, I bake all my pizzas on a baking steel. A baking steel helps replicate the 700°+ degree temperatures of a wood fired pizza oven at home and results in beautiful pizzas that bake in less than 7 minutes. You can get similar results with a baking stone, but they don't get as hot, are harder to clean, and will likely require a longer baking time.
• Don't go overboard with the honey. A wide zig zag in one direction and a wide zig zag in the other direction is more than enough. If you overdo it, the honey overpowers the rest of the flavors.
• To make a vegetarian charcuterie pizza, consider using a vegetarian meat replacement, or maybe even finishing the pizza with a finely grated smoked cheese (liked smoked gouda or gruyere) to make up for losing the smoky-salty flavors of the charcuterie.

📖 Recipe