Build a Jerky & Biltong Summer Snack Board

There's a moment at every summer cookout when the grill is still heating up, the cooler's full, and a small crowd is already circling the table looking for something to eat. That's the exact gap a great snack board fills. Best part? You don't have to cook a single thing.

Cheese boards get all the glory, but a meat snack board built around jerky and biltong is the move nobody expects and everybody devours. It's packed with protein, it travels well, and it holds up in the heat a lot better than a wedge of brie that's been sweating in the sun for an hour. Here's how to build one.

Start with two kinds of dried meat

The trick to a board people keep coming back to is contrast. You want a couple of different textures and a spread of flavors, not five versions of the same thing.

Begin with a chewy, boldly seasoned beef jerky. Wild West Honey BBQ is made for this kind of spread, all sweet and smoky and right at home next to a grill. Then bring in biltong for the other half of the board: air-dried, savory, and tender where jerky is chewy. QINA Beef Sliced Biltong is a reliable crowd-pleaser, and if you want a talking point, a few slices of springbok biltong will have the table asking questions.

Add sticks, salami, and a little heat

Slices are the backbone, but snackable sticks make a board feel generous and give people something to grab without thinking twice. Droëwors, the South African dried sausage, is perfect here, with a coarse, beefy bite that runs circles around any pretzel stick. For the guests who chase heat, lay down a few jalapeño salami snacks. They vanish fast.

One smoky pick ties the whole board back to the cookout. Kuivalihakundi Smoked jerky leans into real wood smoke, which just feels right when there's a grill going a few feet away.

Round it out with the easy stuff

The meat is the star, but every board needs a supporting cast. Keep it simple and summery: a wedge of hard cheese, a handful of olives or cornichons, some crackers or sliced baguette, a bowl of nuts, and whatever fruit is in season. Grapes, figs, or a few apricots all play beautifully against salty, savory meat, and a little something sweet like honey or fig jam balances out the smokier jerky.

Feeding a real crowd? A mixed gift set takes the guesswork out of it. The Indiana Jerky Gift Set bundles ten different snacks, which is basically a snack board in a box waiting to be tipped onto a platter.

Build it in five minutes

Assembly is the easy part. Tear open the packs, fan the jerky and biltong into loose piles, stand the sticks upright in a glass or lean them in a row, and tuck the cheese, fruit, and crackers into the gaps. Aim for a few anchor piles and let everything else fill in around them. Boards are forgiving, and a little overflow reads as abundance, not mess.

Serve everything at room temperature (another reason dried meat wins in summer: no melting, no spoiling in the sun) and keep a backup pack stashed in the kitchen, because the first board never lasts as long as you think it will.

Ready to build yours? Browse the full beef jerky and biltong ranges, pick a few flavors that sound good, and let summer's easiest centerpiece do the rest.