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Sonder LA's Winsome Cutting Board is an all-around winner, with several clever design features that make us want to pull it out for use every day. Read More
This cutting board is the perfect size for most everyday tasks, and it features reliably non-slip edges and a convenient juice canal. Read More
This board is spacious yet light, with unique design features like an iPhone slot and a deep drip canal that make it great for everyday use. Read More
The Teakhaus’ size and heft makes it more of a specialty board than a catch-all winner. Read More
With small, medium, and large sizes for a variety of kitchen tasks, this set comes at a fantastic value with plenty of handy features. Read More
A good cutting board is a kitchen essential. It might not be as flashy as a chef’s knife, and you can’t use it to cook a meal like your favorite cast iron skillet, but you also can’t get started without one. You'll want a sturdy, durable surface as you practice your chop, slice, and dice—like our top pick, the Sonder LA Winsome Cutting Board (available at Sonder LA) . That means it should last a long time, keep your knife intact, and not slide dangerously around the counter as you slice.
There are thousands of cutting boards on the market. Some are gigantic wooden carving boards that require hand-washing and regular maintenance with mineral oil to keep them at their best. Others are smaller, dishwasher-safe models made from plastic, glass, or composite material. There's so much variety in this category that it can be hard to know the good ones from the not-so-much.
We selected several top-rated products of all styles and sizes and ran them through some pretty rigorous testing. Our picks include a bamboo cutting board that was a pleasure to work with, a beautiful teak block that adds functional style to your kitchen, and an easy-to-clean, plastic option for working with raw meats.
Sonder LA's Winsome cutting board is great for prepping and serving.
Sonder LA's Winsome Cutting Board is an all-around winner, with several clever design features that make us want to pull it out for use every day.
The deep juice groove on one side of the board catches excess liquids easily, while the other side features a unique cracker well that's ideal for serving cheese and charcuterie boards. The board also features built-in handles on either end that make serving and maneuvering a breeze.
It's designed with sturdy and sustainable acacia wood that's 1.5 inches thick—making it light enough to flip and move around during use, but durable enough to last for years to come. It also cleans beautifully and resists staining. The Winsome comes with a one-year warranty and helpful care instructions to ensure you're regularly oiling and caring for it.
We love this board for its quality, beautiful design, and versatile use. When it comes to wooden cutting boards, Sonder LA boards are also very reasonably priced. If you're looking for a cutting board that can go from prepping to serving—and is pretty enough to leave out on display—this one's a no-brainer.
The OXO Utility Plastic Cutting Board is the best plastic cutting board we've tested.
The OXO Utility Cutting Board has everything we're looking for in a plastic cutting board: non-slip grip edges to maintain stability, a drip canal with pour corners for easy clean-up, and the perfect amount of space for everyday tasks (without monopolizing your whole countertop).
This board is also double sided, making it great for multi-step recipes where you can use produce on one side and poultry on the other without having to wash in between. Plus, the board is safe to toss in the dishwasher after every use without a second thought.
Food52's The Big Deal Bamboo Cutting Board is sustainable and comfortable to use.
We love how comfortable this bamboo cutting board is to use on a daily basis. Although it's spacious enough to chop several things at once, it weighs in at just five pounds, making it easy to bring in and out of storage for every task. It also features unique design features, like an iPhone slot on one side (perfect for mess-free recipe reading!) and a deep drip canal with pour spout on the other side.
Bamboo can be hard on your knife blades, dulling them faster over time than wood. But bamboo is also a more sustainable source than its wood counterparts, and it's been shown to be more resistant to bacteria. It does require the same regular care as wood, though, so be sure to keep up with regular oiling.
May dull knives over time
The Marine Collection from Teakhaus sources sustainable teak for high quality cutting boards.
We love teak, a high-oil wood, for its ability to fight off moisture better than other wood boards. During testing, this board didn’t absorb any water, and it holds an impressive amount of liquid in its groves before spilling over. The wood is also durable enough to resist most knife marks and scratches, keeping it beautiful even with everyday use.
We especially loved the size of this board in relation to its heft. Since teak is heavier than bamboo and acacia, a larger board would be difficult to maneuver. But this size is perfect for most kitchen tasks, yet small enough to move and clean easily.
This Teakhaus board is fantastic for sustainable shoppers, as it's made from FSC-certified, sustainably grown teak wood from Proteak Renewable Forestry. It features a unique natural grain pattern that's stylish enough to leave on your countertop when not in use, and it's great for serving while entertaining.
The groved design prevents water from spilling
Teak wood fights off moisture better
Too heavy to move around the kitchen
Too large to fit in a sink
This set of three Gorilla Grip plastic cutting boards comes at a fantastic value.
For a handy plastic board set that offers great value for your money, we highly recommend this set from Gorilla Grip.
It features three convenient sizes: the smallest being 11.8 by 8 inches, the medium being 13.8 by 9.6 inches, and the largest being 16 by 11.2 inches. There's an option for every task, from chopping herbs to slicing steak, without worrying about overcrowding.
Each board features nonslip rubber edges for sturdiness, but we found they didn't remain as non-slip as its OXO competitors. But they do feature grooves to catch liquids and comfortable handles for easy carrying. Plus, all three pieces are fully reversible and dishwasher safe.
The reversible maple John Boos board is flat on both sides. It’s nice and heavy, so it doesn’t slip at all while chopping, but that weight makes it slightly difficult to clean. While it performed on par with the other boards, we preferred the teak wood used to construct the Teakhaus board over the maple wood used in this John Boos board. Maple is a dry wood, which felt unpleasant to chop on. In addition, the Boos absorbed more liquid than most of the boards.
This is a great wood cutting board, but it will require a lot of maintenance and upkeep to prevent that dry maple wood from splitting.
Slightly difficult to clean because of weight
Maple wood requires high maintenance
We didn't like this one as much as the other bamboo board we tested. Its juice grooves are too shallow to hold much liquid. It gripped nicely and had minimal scratching, but the texture of the board itself is rough. The juice grooves are unfinished, which is unpleasant to touch and clean, and the board retained stains from the beets.
Nothing about this board really spoke to us, and there are certainly better cutting boards for the price.
The OXO Good Grips Cutting and Carving Board has, well, a good grip. Rubber edges hold the board to the surface as you cut. It's a nice feature because they’re located on the side, so the board is still reversible. This board is large enough for carving a Thanksgiving turkey, but unfortunately, it's too large to fit in the dishwasher. That nullifies its dishwasher-safe claim by default!
The surface was a little slick for our liking, failing to grip the food as we chopped. And while the board features juice grooves, they are a bit too shallow to retain much liquid.
There’s nothing terrible about it, but there’s also nothing that makes it shine—except its size. If you’re looking for a very large, inexpensive cutting board, this is the one.
Rubber edge holds to the surface
The surface is too slick
Juice grooves can't retain juice
We wanted to love the Fredericks and Mae Chopping Block as soon as we unboxed it. The design on this plastic cutting board goes above and beyond, with a smooth, confetti-splashed surface and a wide handle that come together to look like a showpiece. Unfortunately, it didn’t fare well during our tests.
We loved that this one-inch-thick cutting board was heavy enough to stay in place when chopping, slicing, and dicing, but the weight made it a little difficult to clean. The plastic also scratched easily, so it might fare better as a serving piece rather than a regularly-used cutting board. Since it’s also one of the most expensive products we tested, we would have a hard time justifying the purchase.
Stays in place while using
If you’re looking for an inexpensive bamboo cutting board, the Farberware 11" x 14 " Thick Nonslip Bamboo Cutting Board is pretty attractive. But when it came to performance, it fell short compared to the other cutting boards we tested.
While we liked that the nonslip feet on each corner of the board kept it from moving around as we used it, they also made it difficult to slide food off the board without catching. Cleaning beet juice around the feet was a little challenging, too. The board’s grooves weren’t as helpful as we thought, either, as they weren't deep enough to hold much liquid.
All in all, the price on this board makes it perfect for a rental property or an addition to a camping box, but it’s not ideal for everyday use.
Stays in place while using
Nonslip feet get in the way
We chopped onions on each board to see if it stayed put while we worked.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Mattison, a trained professional chef and cutting board enthusiast. I'm not joking—my favorite cutting board is on a short list of essentials I'd want if I were ever stranded on a desert island.
In culinary school, I spent a lot of time in front of cutting boards, perfecting my knife skills. I went on to become the chef of a farm-to-table restaurant, which meant I spent hours and hours at the prep table slicing up farm-fresh veggies. It was there that I learned a good cutting board is just as important as your blade. I'd love to use that knowledge to help you find your new favorite cutting board.
We tried over a dozen products of various sizes and materials in our test kitchen and in our home kitchens. Each one was different, but the top cutting boards needed to share three important characteristics: sturdiness & balance, ease of use, and durability.
It’s important that your cutting board stays put as you chop. Boards that shift or slide during use create an unsafe situation for you and that very sharp knife you're wielding. We assessed sturdiness & balance by mincing garlic and chopping onions, checking to see if the board sat flat and still on the counter.
A heavy cutting board may stay put during use, but no one wants a board that's too heavy to carry to the sink for cleaning! We determined ease of use by weighing each board to see if it was easy to pick up and put away. Then we checked if it had enough surface area to handle everyday tasks. Finally, we measured its ability to handle juicy foods by calculating liquid absorption and how much liquid the grooves (if present) could hold.
Cutting boards aren't typically pricey, but like anything you spend money on, you're going to want your board to last as long as possible. We tested durability by running boards that were marked as "dishwasher safe" through the dishwasher, checking afterward for warping. We examined how the surface stood up to our sharp knives, foods that tend to stain, and foods that tend to leave unpleasant odors.
We also sharpened our knives before using each cutting board but found that none of the materials had a noticeable effect on dulling the knives. We didn’t, however, test any glass, marble, or ceramic boards, which are notorious for destroying your knife's edge.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time. The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.
The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.
Lindsay is a professional chef, recipe developer, writer, and developmental editor. After years of working in restaurant kitchens, she turned to writing to share her passion for local, organic, and seasonal ingredients with home cooks and food enthusiasts.
Monica is Reviewed's Kitchen & Cooking editor and an avid home cook; she's been testing a wide range of kitchen products at Reviewed for two years. Previously the Digital Editor at Culture Cheese Magazine (and a former barista), she's also had her work published in The Boston Globe, Modern Luxury, Boston Magazine, and more.
Managing Editor, Kitchen & Appliances
Managing Editor, Kitchen & Appliances. Danielle has a B.S. from Syracuse University and a AAS in Culinary Arts from Newbury College. Previously, Danielle was a Test Cook and Associate Editor at America's Test Kitchen, as well as a freelance recipe developer and food writer. She’s the mom of two boys and loves making pizza on Friday nights.
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