Have you heard of a chili board?
Picture this: an impressive family-style spread featuring hearty venison chili at its core, surrounded by an assortment of toppings like as shredded cheddar cheese, fritos, diced onions, sour cream, jalapeños, and fresh cilantro.
Chili boards are a brilliant idea for laid-back entertaining, keeping things manageable for a crowd of any size, but giving your guests a fun and flavorful experience too.
The beauty of a chili board lies in its versatility. It allows you to put together a diverse array of toppings, textures, and tastes in an inviting setup that sparks conversations and allows guests to customize their bowls.
Whether it's a game night, family gathering, or casual get-together, a well-curated chili board is sure to impress and satisfy.
HOW TO CREATE A CHILI BOARD
1. MAKE YOUR VENISON CHILI
Choose your favorite venison chili recipe and scale it to the number of guests. If you're looking for a chili recipe to try below are a few we love:
- Venison Chili in the "Buck, Buck, Moose" cookbook by Hank Shaw.
- Venison Chili in "The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for Every Hunter and Angler" by Steven Rinella
- Venison Chili in "Wild Game Cooking" cookbook by Keith Sarasin
2. CREATE YOUR CHILI BOARD
Ingredients:
- Cornbread muffins (we like Famous Dave's mix)
- Fritos
- Blue corn chips
- Oyster crackers
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Sour cream
- Pico de gallo
- Jalapeños
- Fresh corn
- Cilantro
- Green onions or scallions
- Lime wedges
Start by baking your cornbread muffins. We figured one for every guest, plus a few extras.
Next, tape down a wide piece of butcher's paper on your countertop or wherever you'll set up your spread. We used brown butcher paper to blend in better.
Place a few bowls for sour cream and pico de gallo or any other saucy toppings you'll offer. We did one of each on either end of the board.
Now it's time to get creative and start adding piles of your toppings to the board. I like to add a least two piles of each item and place them on both sides of the board so guests can begin wherever they like. I'll lay down the big items first, like the cornbread muffins, fritos, chips and oyster crackers and then move to the smaller items like corn, jalapeños, cilantro, green pepper and lime wedges as you fill in the gaps.
Don't try to make it look perfect, a little messy looks better. You can cover up the edges of the butcher paper by spreading out the ingredients to flow just a little over the paper.
Put out some bowls, spoons and napkins and you're good to go.
Let us know in the comments, do you like this idea for entertaining and using your venison? Any other toppings you'd add?
