A good cutting board is essential to any home cook’s kitchen. And you may think that a board is a board is a board, but the best cutting boards offer a better slicing, chopping, and overall prep experience. Whether you’re just learning the ropes in the kitchen or regularly take on multiday cooking projects, a cutting board is likely your most-used piece of kitchen equipment, right up there with your chef’s knife and prep bowl. So it’s the kind of tool that’s worth putting some real thought into and asking some questions about. What types of cutting boards are there? What materials and features best suit your needs? Do you need more than one board in different sizes? And, of supreme importance, what should you do with that frosted glass cutting board set great-aunt Mabel gifted you 17 holidays ago?
The best cutting boards
Material (grippy) reBoard
John Boos & Co. Grooved Reversible Maple Wood Cutting Board
NoTrax Sani-Tuff T45 Natural Rubber Cutting Board
Whether you’re adding to your current chopping board collection or just looking to replace a warped old thing, you’ll need to know which boards are the most durable, gentlest on your knives, and pretty enough to adorn your countertop.
Ahead, we’ll break down each of the best cutting boards.
Best cutting board according to expert home cooks: Material (grippy) reBoard
Pros: Doesn’t easily show wear and tear, silicone corners keep it nonslip, features a small hole in the corner for gripping and sliding chopped ingredients through.
Cons: No juice groove around the edge to catch stray vegetables or juices.
Material (grippy) reBoard
Following the massive success of Material’s reBoard, the brand released a new, better version of its plastic bestseller—this one with silicone corners to address the older plastic cutting board’s lack of stability and make it “100% budge-free.” Thus the grippy reBoard was born, going on to win the heart of BA contributor Kat Thompson and earn a spot as the best plastic cutting board during the rigorous product testing over at Epicurious.
Despite the fact that this is not a heavy-duty board, both testers highlighted its sturdiness—with Thompson specifically saying it remained “glued in place” through all her dicing, chopping, mincing, and hacking—as well as how its light weight that makes it easy to move around. A small hole in the corner of the board offers an easy place to slide chopped veggies through, though it lacks a groove around the board for catching stray vegetables or juices. Still, it’s a small price to pay for a plastic board that Thompson describes as “near perfect.”
Specs
Material: Plastic
Size: 14.75″ x 10.75″ x 0.375″
Best cutting board according to the Bon Appétit test kitchen: John Boos & Co. Grooved Reversible Maple Wood Cutting Board
Pros: Groove going around the board, smoother on the knife.
Cons: Can stain more easily and requires more upkeep than a plastic cutting board.
John Boos & Co. Grooved Reversible Maple Wood Cutting Board
When it comes to the best wood cutting boards, you can’t get much better than a Boos Block. The brand’s high-quality wood edge-grain board maintains a top pick as the best wood board for Epicurious, but test kitchen coordinator Inés Anguiano prefers the curved reversible maple cutting board. Overall, Anguiano likes wood boards over plastic boards for the greater surface area control and smoother cutting experience. With some thinner plastic boards, you can feel every groove of the textured plastic when cutting. That’s not the case with a wood board.
The Boos board in particular also features a groove that runs around the board, which Anguiano calls a “bumper.” “The same as in bowling,” she says. “It just gives you that buffer space. But also just like prevent spills, keeps everything more contained.” It also offers a space for her to put her garnish and prep garlic. That combined with the large surface area means she can do a lot of tasks on the board at the same time, making meal prep a breeze. You might see some more staining with a wood board, especially when cutting something like steamed beets, and cleaning won’t be as easy as throwing it in the dishwasher (in fact, you definitely shouldn’t do that)—but Anguiano promises that if you give it that extra bit of care, your board will carry you through the kitchen for a long time.
Specs
Material: Wood (maple)
Size: 18″ x 10.5″ x 1.5″ and 20″ x 14″ x 1.5″
The best cutting board according to the pros: NoTrax Sani-Tuff Natural Rubber Cutting Board
Pros: Incredibly durable, won’t hurt your knives.
Cons: Doesn’t have the same curb appeal as a wood cutting board; might stain a little more easily than a plastic cutting board.
NoTrax Sani-Tuff T45 Natural Rubber Cutting Board
Chef Ayaka Guido, chef de cuisine at abc Kitchen, can’t remember a time when she didn’t use the NoTrax rubber cutting board. “It’s literally the cutting board I’ve been using ever since I started cooking. Every kitchen always had it,” Guido says. “I just assume it should be there. To me, it needs to be there.”
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