One of my favorite things in the whole wide world is charcuterie boards! No matter the theme for making them they’re the perfect way to up your snack game, customize to the occasion and any dietary needs! For valentines day I put together something extra fun (and extra pink) I hope you’ll love!

To build this board, I started in the candy aisle (duh!) Valentines has so many fun, colorful options in heart shapes and is in so many ways the second Halloween (or first?) I’ve linked everything I snagged below including Valentine’s M&M’s, Hershey’s, Conversation Hearts, and JuJu Hearts!

My favorite little sweet treat I made are these pink, heart shaped mini rice treats! To make these I mixed up rice treats per usual - rice cereal, marshmallows and lots of butter - and added red food dye to the mixture. I recommend doing this with the butter so it goes in more evenly and you don’t get any streaks or paler pieces! Once mixed, press it into a baking dish or cookie sheet with raised edges and chill until set. Once set, take a small (or whatever size you’d like) cookie cutter and cut them into your hearts!

I added drizzled chocolate and sprinkles - or even dipped chocolate with sprinkles for added Valentines flare! Get creative with these & its even more fun!

For the other rice treats, I made them the same way but instead of dying them left them plane & cut into larger squares. If you don’t feel like making these but still want the added Valentines fun of chocolate and sprinkles or candy, head to the store or order pre-made Rice Krispie Treats online. All you have to do from there is unwrap, dip in chocolate and decorate to your liking!

To make the pretzel rods & mini chocolate dipped & drizzled pretzels all you need to do is take a piece of wax paper and place on whatever cookie sheet or large tray/plate you’d like! Place the pretzels out evenly and make sure they’re not connected or else the chocolate will keep them together! Once placed, melt your chocolate - I used milk and white - and drizzle over or dip them in, using a spoon to add on additional where empty spots may have been. Once done, you can use candies or sprinkles to decorate to your liking! I personally recommend using smaller sprinkles - the large hearts were super cute but could be a little to much to chew on when we tried them out!

Ingredients:

Tips for Creating Your Board:

Charcuterie boards can be so intimidating! I remember looking at the ones on Pinterest and thinking I could NEVER make one that beautiful but honestly, it’s something anyone can do! Here are my tips for making it happen!

Start by laying out your biggest bits! For this board, the rice treats, pretzels rods and strawberries were the biggest pieces! I laid them on one at a time in a way I thought looked nice! I check the look of things by looking at the board from the top and various sides!
Figure out your fillers! Fillers typically are smaller pieces - mini pretzels, M&M’s, JuJu Hearts, etc. Once you’ve got these figured out you can slowly begin to place these in to fill in the gaps! I suggest placing them around the board so any side can access that bite without having to reach across the entire board!
Adjust as needed! Even though things can start looking good, they can also move or mess up! Don’t fret- just squeeze things around and see what you like!