How to Choose the Best Chopping Board

A chop­ping board is a basic essen­tial in any mod­ern kitchen, which goes hand in hand with the kitchen knife. Any chef can slice, chop, and dice fruits, veg­gies, and meat on this kitchen tool. Addi­tion­al­ly, you can opt to impro­vise it as a base for mak­ing a sand­wich and clean­ing sal­ad leaves. With this vital kitchen appli­ance, you can quick­ly, safe­ly, and effi­cient­ly work on most food ingredients.

If you hap­pen to choose a high-qual­i­ty chop­ping board, it will pro­vide a reli­able sur­face for the edge of your knives. Sim­i­lar­ly, a poor qual­i­ty chop­ping board might also encour­age the exis­tence of harm­ful bac­te­ria. How­ev­er, choos­ing a high-qual­i­ty chop­ping board might look cum­ber­some. There­fore, it is imper­a­tive to under­stand the fac­tors to con­sid­er when choos­ing your kitchen’s most suit­able one.

Here, we will check on some of the fac­tors buy­ers can con­sid­er before the pur­chase of this kitchen item. Some of these fac­tors are size, mate­r­i­al, cost, dura­bil­i­ty, col­or, style of con­struc­tion, and san­i­ta­tion. On this plat­form, we will go deep­er into some of these factors.

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Chopping Board Size

The size of a par­tic­u­lar chop­ping board is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor that can real­ly deter­mine your effi­cien­cy in the kitchen. It would be best if you went for a larg­er cut­ting board where you can chop both large and small food mate­ri­als. For instance, it is sim­pler to chop corian­der on a large board than slic­ing huge chunks of meat on a small board. Equal­ly, most of the large chop­ping boards have a drip-groove space, which is a bonus in pre­vent­ing juice run-off. Before opt­ing to pur­chase a par­tic­u­lar cut­ting board, it can also be wise to con­sid­er the size of your sink. Ensure that the width of this kitchen kit fits in the sink for eas­i­er cleaning.

It is also rea­son­able to go for a board size that can fit your stor­age space with no has­sle. In case you opt to pur­chase a plas­tic one, con­sid­er whether it can fit in your kitchen’s dish­wash­er. How­ev­er, if you are a reg­u­lar cook, you can go for dif­fer­ent sizes of chop­ping boards. With such boards, you can deploy each of them when slic­ing spe­cif­ic food items. For exam­ple, you can slice cheese and onion on a small board and work on a whole chick­en on a large board.

Chopping Board Material

Notably, the mate­r­i­al of a cut­ting board is a prime fea­ture that every user should con­sid­er. Chop­ping boards come in mate­ri­als like wood, glass, plas­tic, steel, sil­i­cone, bam­boo, and com­pos­ite. You can opt to pur­chase a board of your pre­ferred mate­r­i­al after look­ing at the advan­tages of each type.

Wood Chopping Board

In par­tic­u­lar, the kitchen cut­ting board made from wood remains beau­ti­ful and fits nice­ly on a coun­ter­top if well main­tained. Those that are made from hard­wood like sug­ar maple are durable and can resist the exis­tence of bac­te­ria. Equal­ly, those made from oth­er hard­wood like Olive, White Ash­wood, and bam­boo are quite stur­dy. Sim­i­lar­ly, soft­wood such as Wal­nut, Larch, Cher­ry, Teak, and Hino­ki make good qual­i­ty cut­ting boards. How­ev­er, it is worth to avoid cedar and pine soft­wood boards for they are prone to damage.

Pros

• The wood­en cut­ting block is sturdy.
• Pre­serves the blade of your knife.
• Less prone to har­bor bacteria.
• Made from nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al (wood) and, there­fore, health-safe.

Cons 

• It can be heavy to move on a countertop.
• It can eas­i­ly absorb stains and odors.

Wood Chop­ping Boards, via Amazon

Bamboo Chopping Boards

Since bam­boo is a fast-grow­ing plant, bam­boo chop­ping boards are great alter­na­tives and are rel­a­tive­ly cheap­er. To come up with a high-qual­i­ty bam­boo cut­ting board, one requires to con­sid­er bamboo’s size, mat­u­ra­tion, and mark­ings. Chop­ping board made from bam­boo are quite stur­dy and not sus­cep­ti­ble to water absorp­tion. Less rate of water absorp­tion of this board makes it a hygien­ic option, for it won’t har­bor bac­te­ria. More­over, it would be eas­i­er for any­one to move this board with­in the kitchen coun­ter­top since it is a light­weight mod­el. It is worth not­ing that the bam­boo board requires oil­ing at least twice a week using food-safe min­er­al oil.

Pros

• It is an afford­able board model.
• It is light to lift when work­ing on it.
• Has lam­i­nat­ed strips and hence less prone to warping.

Cons

• Can eas­i­ly blunt your knife due to its hard surface.

Bam­boo Chop­ping Boards, via Amazon

 Stone or Glass Chopping Boards

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, these chop­ping boards are known to be attrac­tive­ly pos­sess­ing a fash­ion­able and beau­ti­ful appeal. How­ev­er, glass cut­ting boards are health-haz­ard since they might add some glass pieces which might chip off while cut­ting food ingredients.

Mar­ble boards bear visu­al appeal but are more expen­sive. Their fea­tures are rel­a­tive­ly sim­i­lar to those of glass. Note that it is advis­able to use the glass chop­ping board for food serv­ing purposes.

Pros

• It can be used for both serv­ing and chopping.
• It is hygien­ic and easy to clean.
• They are light models.
• Dis­cour­age germs build-up

Cons

• They are frag­ile models.
• Can quick­ly blunt the knife’s blades.
• It can­not sup­port the slic­ing of some food ingre­di­ents like meat.

Stone Chop­ping Boards, via Ama­zon

Plastic Chopping Boards (HDPE)

Plas­tic cut­ting boards are among the most com­mon mod­els that most peo­ple pre­fer in their kitchen. Some come in vary­ing col­ors, and chefs can pick the suit­able board for spe­cif­ic food items and dis­cour­age cross-contamination.

How­ev­er, plas­tic boards with large knife marks might even­tu­al­ly har­bor germs that risk your health.

Pros

• Are dish­wash­er-safe.
• Retains knife blade sharpness.
• Are inex­pen­sive
• Are durable if well maintained.

Cons

• Some are too light and keep slid­ing on countertops.
• It can eas­i­ly warp if reg­u­lar­ly washed in a dishwasher.

Plas­tic Chop­ping Boards, via Amazon

Composite Chopping Boards (Wood-fiber/Phenolic resins)

Gen­er­al­ly, Com­pos­ite chop­ping boards are made from wood fiber, recy­cled paper, and card­boards. They come in two main ver­sions from which a par­tic­u­lar user will choose from. The first mod­el is of high qual­i­ty, for it is heavy and thick. Alter­na­tive­ly, a cus­tomer can opt to buy a medi­um qual­i­ty ver­sion which is thin and light. In some cas­es, you may note an odd smell from these boards though the smell eas­es away after fre­quent cleaning.

Pros 

• Most of them are affordable.
• No issues of warping.
• Made from sus­tain­able resources.

Cons

• Wood-based boards can dam­age knives’ blades.
• High-qual­i­ty mod­els are expensive.

Com­pos­ite Chop­ping Boards, via Amazon

Chopping Board Hygiene

Since a chop­ping board is an inte­gral part of your kitchen, thor­ough clean­ing and san­i­ti­za­tion are vital for the main­te­nance of hygiene. Clean­ing should be done after each chop­ping, aim­ing at the cut­ting marks and crevices on the board’s sur­face. The user focus­es on these cut­ting marks, for they are the pri­ma­ry habi­tat for pathogens and bac­te­ria. Clean­ing cut­ting boards can be done using a sponge and a soapy solu­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, if you need to elim­i­nate foul smell from the wood­en boards, rinse it thor­ough­ly with a saline solu­tion. Besides, you can use salt and a half-cut lemon to rub against the board’s surface.

Alter­na­tive­ly, you can opt to deploy dif­fer­ent cut­ting boards while work­ing on food items like veg­eta­bles, raw meat, and oth­ers. This will reduce the risk of cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. More­over, avoid the ten­den­cy of clean­ing the boards with a piece of cloth as it can spread the germs from the cut­ting board to the entire kitchen. Specif­i­cal­ly, the wood­en board is per­ceived as more hygien­ic than plas­tic board mod­els since they have anti-micro­bial prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, it is worth not­ing that some wood types are tox­ic and are not suit­able for mak­ing cut­ting boards. But if you are to pur­chase a chop­ping board from pop­u­lar and rep­utable man­u­fac­tur­ers, this should not wor­ry you.

Chopping Board Maintenance

In gen­er­al, every chop­ping board mod­el requires prop­er main­te­nance for it to remain in good con­di­tion. Good main­te­nance prac­tice will elon­gate its ser­vice life and make your work more effi­cient. Glass boards are the eas­i­est to clean com­pared to plas­tic and wood­en ones. Addi­tion­al­ly, it lacks the cut­ting marks that har­bor pathogens. How­ev­er, the glass board requires a lot more care when han­dling since it is brit­tle. Both bam­boo and wood­en boards require oil­ing to pro­tect them from harm­ful micro-organ­isms and water.

Main­ly, the oil­ing of cut­ting boards requires either wax or any food-safe oil. All you need is to apply this oil on the board’s sur­face and pol­ish it using a clean cloth after some min­utes. Also, prop­er stor­age of your board is quite para­mount. Sim­ply ensure your board is clean and borne dry, then after­ward keep it upright to ensure it does not hold mois­ture. Most chop­ping boards last longer, but the lev­el of main­te­nance also deter­mines this. Always check the size of the cut­tings on the sur­face of the board to exam­ine the lev­el of dam­age done to it. This can assist you to know whether you are to replace the board or to re-oil it.

Summary

To con­clude, choos­ing the best chop­ping board for your kitchen can be more than one might think. It is almost impos­si­ble to pur­chase a great board mod­el with no infor­ma­tion about the fac­tors to con­sid­er while buy­ing one. For instance, size is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor that any cus­tomer should con­sid­er. Bear­ing this fac­tor in mind will elim­i­nate the issue of stor­ing this appli­ance in your kitchen. Sim­i­lar­ly, pur­chas­ing the right size of a board will ease its clean­ing in the sink. Addi­tion­al­ly, choos­ing the suit­able mate­r­i­al for your cut­ting board will help you get one that serves the pur­pose. These and oth­er fac­tors will keep you in the know about what to pick and what to leave in the market.