Charcuterie Chalet (a low-carb / keto gingerbread house!)

Move over Gingerbread House, this Charcuterie Chalet is the new way to party this Christmas…This keto and low-carb “gingerbread” house is just too fun!

OK, so this is going to be a super short post but Lauren and I had so much fun building this low carb gingerbread house (AKA Charcuterie Chalet) built out of meat that we just had to share! Christmas time is filled with gingerbread houses but what about for the folks who are eating low-carb, have food allergies, or just want something a bit different this year? That’s where this Charcuterie Chalet comes in!

Seriously, how fun does this look? I can promise it was as equally fun to build, we both felt like little kids.

I can’t take full credit for this fantastic idea, I remember scrolling through Reddit a few years ago and seeing a gingerbread house made out of meat and cheese and I stashed the idea away for a rainy December day sometime in the future. Well, that future arrived on a rainy Portland day and Lauren and I took a trip down to Trader Joe’s and proceeded to buy LOTS of meat and cheese, I’m sure they thought we were throwing one epic party but no, alas we were just tapping into our 10-year-old selves to build a MEAT MANSION.

Right, so the name. We had a lot of ideas and while Charcuterie Chalet ultimately won out in the gingerbread house made out of meat category, these were the runner-ups:

• Meat Mansion – I liked this one but Lauren thought is was terribly gross sounding

• Charcuterie Chateau – again, good but chalet is more fitting I think

• Pepperoni Palace – clearly not festive enough

• Salami Shack – for some reason this sounds more NSFW than it should

• Keto Cottage – again with the lack of festive cheer

Now, there are endless ways to create your own Charcuterie Chalet but most of the fun is using your imagination to see what world you can create out of meat and cheese. So while we won’t be giving a step-by-step tutorial we can share a few key tips to make the process easy!

HOW TO MAKE A LOW CARB GINGERBREAD HOUSE

• the “glue” is, you guessed it, CREAM CHEESE. The block kind. We simply used cream cheese to assemble all of the walls and roof together. We also used it as a sort of sticky putty to keep things like the sled and rosemary tree, and a Christmas tree in place.

• for our walls, we used Crispbreads from Trader Joe’s but any low-carb cracker will work!

• To make a Christmas tree we used both the rosemary and a triangular piece of cream cheese studded with pepitas and a pomegranate aril on top.

• For the snow, we used both whipped cream cheese and powdered parmesan!

• For the logs we used tiny salami sticks, the rocks are macadamia nuts, and the cobblestones are Moon Cheese!

• To make your chalet sturdy place a keto-friendly cheeseball into the center.

• To store it, wrap loosely in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.

If you decide to make a Charcuterie Chalet this Christmas, PLEASE tag us on IG @castiron_keto and tag #castironketo. Be sure to leave a comment below too!