Sam’s Club Has a New Appetizer I’m Serving All Holiday Season Long

The holiday season is quickly approaching and, if you’re like me, your calendar is filling up quickly with Friendsgivings, ugly sweater parties, and every hosting event in between. When that starts to happen, I immediately begin searching for easy dishes that I can bring to every party of the season. 

Traditionally, that might mean sandwich sliders, cookies, and dips, but if I can find a store-bought shortcut, too, that’s an easy win. Ina Garten famously said she passes off Trader Joe’s French Apple Tart as homemade, so, if the Barefoot Contessa can do it, so can I. 

The quickest appetizer that’s essentially always store-bought over homemade—yet can still be the centerpiece of a party—is the cheese board. Most of us scour the deli section for special, yet crowd-pleasing, cheeses and meats to serve with accouterments, like crackers, jams, nuts, and fruits, before trying to recreate the perfectly curated charcuterie board you found on Pinterest.

Meats and cheeses aren’t always cheap and by the time you add the rest of the ingredients, you can find yourself spending a pretty penny on one appetizer. This holiday season, Sam’s Club has created the ultimate Charcuterie Entertainment Tray, all for less than $30. And I’ll be buying it for every gathering.

Sam’s Club Releases New Member’s Mark Charcuterie Entertainment Tray

Oftentimes, store-bought charcuterie trays contain a simple mix of yellow Cheddar, pepperoni, and crackers that you have to dress up yourself. Otherwise, the elaborate ones can run you close to $100. 

The Sam’s Club new Member’s Mark Charcuterie Entertainment Tray is not like either of those. The tray contains practically everything you need to create a stunning (and delicious) cheese board for just $29.14. 

Sam’s polled its customers to determine what they would like to see in a store-bought charcuterie board, and it goes well beyond Colby Jack cheese, pepperoni, and some Ritz crackers. 

The Charcuterie Entertainment Tray features three cheeses, sharp Cheddar, Havarti dill, and smoked Gouda; three meat options, prosciutto, hot soppressata, and Genoa salami; a Greek olive medley; mixed nuts; multigrain crackers; fig spread; and stone-ground mustard. 

The cheeses and meats are full-sized products, with enough olives and nuts to fill the empty spaces on your board. Sam’s says the board serves about 10 to 12 people, meaning you’re only paying about $3 per person for an elevated cheese tray that’s ready to serve in minutes.

I tried the new Member’s Mark Charcuterie Entertainment Tray at Sam’s Club HQ a few months back, and there’s a reason our sister brand Food & Wine named it as one of its top Editor’s Picks. It’s a store-bought tray that I actually want to serve.

The Charcuterie Entertainment Tray is filled with foods that I’d actually purchase for a cheese board—none of that boring, basic pepperoni and stale crackers stuff. 

The cheeses are unique, yet not too out of the ordinary that picky eaters won’t try them. The meats are elevated, yet approachable. The olives and nuts feel like a bonus in the affordable tray, and because they fill up the board, you actually don’t need to purchase anything else to serve on it. And the crackers and fig spread are the perfect combination.

Now, the stone-ground mustard deserves a highlight of its own. I cannot stress enough how delicious this spread is—so good that I, and everyone else at HQ, was eating the mustard on the crackers by itself. 

I am so thoroughly impressed by Sam’s Club’s new holiday appetizer—and I can assure you it will be making an appearance at every one of my gatherings for the rest of the year.