The Nutty Costco Find That Belongs On Every Cheese Board

The cheese-board trend has been around for a while now, and some of you might be losing steam. Have you tried every cheese and cured meat you can get your hands on? Have you run out of charcuterie board ideas for your next gathering? Then look no further than Costco's praline pecans.

The key to a good cheese board (or charcuterie board if you prefer) is variety and customization. You want a good blend of different styles, flavors, and textures of cheese, and you want to always have great things to combine them with. This gives those grazing through the board the opportunity to try what they like, change up what they don't, and surprise themselves as they gather together.

Praline pecans are a great addition to this, because their butter-and-brown-sugar coating makes them sweet, chewy, and crunchy. This helps them pair well with softer cheeses — and their sharper counterparts — as well as a variety of wines. Just imagine taking a bite of creamy goat cheese paired with this complex, sugary, and just-a-touch-savory pecan, or swap out that cheese to balance out the saltiness of parmesan instead.

These praline pecans are made by Costco's Kirkland Signature brand, but that doesn't actually mean you have to have a Costco membership to get them. You can still pick up a 2.5-pound jar of these nuts from Amazon or Walmart. It's just going to cost you more than if you found them at Costco. Walmart is currently selling them for roughly $25, which isn't bad when you consider you're getting a Costco-sized portion of them. Amazon prices vary, but they're about the same.

Of course, everyone's favorite big-box chain is going to have those prices beat. Not just because the stuff is from its own signature brand, but also because Costco use membership fees to subsidize these kinds of prices. At Costco, you can get the same-sized jar for just $16.99. They seem to be the same product; the difference is just where you find them.

Of course, if you've got the time, you can always make your own praline pecans to help elevate your cheese board from standard to sensational.

Praline pecans are really just a type of candied nut. This can be confusing, though, since pecan pralines – notice the reversed order of words — are a type of candied confection, which is different from the praline pecans sold at Costco.

Pecan pralines are an Southern U.S. candy that's made by mixing chopped or whole pecans into a creamy sweet batter and letting them set into the shape of a crunchy cookie. That batter is usually made up of butter, brown sugar, and cream that's cooked down into a type of syrup. Depending on the recipe, this could give it a flavor that balances savory and sweet, thanks to the process of browning butter and cream; you'll end up with something close to an extra-rich style of caramel with crunchy bites of pecan spread throughout.

Costco's praline pecans are different because — while they might use a similar coating — they remain as individual nuts. That means they aren't as heavily flavored, they always give a nice solid crunch, and they're slightly more pecan-forward than their candy counterparts.