What is the best material for cutting boards?

[Cooking4Fun]

What is the best material for cutting boards for meat, vegetables, and kneeding dough?

 

[jennyema]

Plastic or wood

I use plastic because they are cheap, durable and go in the dishwasher.

The most important attribute for a cutting board is that the material must be soft so that they dont ruin your knives. Those thin plastic mats are bad as are even mor crazy things like glass cutting boards.

You dont need a cutting board for kneading dough.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I use these inexpensive plastic bartenders boards in my little apartment kitchen.

 

[Andy M.]

What jennyema said.

Also, avoid bamboo boards. The bamboo isn't so hard but the epoxy they use to make it into a board is super hard and tough on knife edges.

 

[thymeless]

You need to explain what criteria make up best for you. There is no one best, it will vary by what is important to you.

I prefer plastic/nylon. They're easier to care for.

There is a lot of bad hype about wood and hygiene. You'll find good science that states that wood naturally kills bacteria better than plastic boards. The bad science is to extend that to wood being safer.

It's not.

It doesn't kill enough bacteria to be food safe. You have to wash both of them to be food safe.

Plastic, you can sterilize. Wood you can't. This is why Health Departments require plastic for food service environments.

You don't need a board for kneading dough. It can simplify clean up but that's the extent of things. For some doughs, a marble surface is better for how it keeps the dough cooler, less natural stickiness and so forth.

 

[dragnlaw]

I wish someone would explain the difference in the glue used with bamboo and the glue used with other woods. Please???

All my cutting boards are laminated - meaning glued together. I know my big one is maple, not sure what two others are but think they are maple too. Maybe another one is bamboo, again not sure.
My 4 little individual ones are bamboo, which is reputed to be the hardest material in as it is actually a grass and less porous. I seem to use these the most right now. I go in spurts of use with various ones.

 

[thymeless]

My understanding is it's not so much the glue as the silica bamboo contains. Silica can be quite hard and contribute to chipping your knife edges as well as just faster wear.

 

[dragnlaw]

So, Cooking4Fun, I would say, unless you are standing over a cutting board with your $300.00 chef's knife for 8 hours a day...

the best board would be wood - any wood.

Top 6 Cutting Boards

 

[Marlingardener]

I have two cutting boards, both wood. Both are maple. They don't dull or damage my knives, are easily cleaned with hot soapy water, and have lasted for over 20 years.
I bought a plastic cutting board several years ago, and found that it had deep scratches from my knives after a few uses. Ease of cleaning? No, trying to clean the cuts, even with a bleach solution, was more trouble than just washing the wooden boards.

 

[dragnlaw]

I kept a stiff nail brush at all of my sinks, 3 barns, kitchen, bathroom, (and out door shower, ). Not only for used on nails!

 

[Andy M.]

. . . I bought a plastic cutting board several years ago, and found that it had deep scratches from my knives after a few uses. Ease of cleaning? No, trying to clean the cuts, even with a bleach solution, was more trouble than just washing the wooden boards.

Put your plastic CB in the dishwasher and run it. Use the sanitize cycle if just the wash cycle isn't enough. I've been using plastic cutting boards exclusively for decades with zero issues.

 

[taxlady]

The problem with the hard epoxy and bamboo cutting boards is the amount of epoxy. All of the bamboo boards that I have seen were mad of very narrow slats of wood, usually about 1 mm thick. They look like they are made of 2/3 or less of bamboo and 1/3 or more of epoxy.

 

[dragnlaw]

Ahhh, I have never seen those. I will keep that in mind while looking,

 

[taxlady]

I just remembered another detail about bamboo cutting boards. Those very narrow slats of bamboo that are glued together, often they glue them into about 1-2 cm wide pieces and then glue those together. That gives an appearance that is similar to the appearance of wood that is glued together from long, straight pieces of wood.

 

[Cooking4Fun]

You need to explain what criteria make up best for you. There is no one best, it will vary by what is important to you.

I prefer plastic/nylon. They're easier to care for.

There is a lot of bad hype about wood and hygiene. You'll find good science that states that wood naturally kills bacteria better than plastic boards. The bad science is to extend that to wood being safer.

It's not.

It doesn't kill enough bacteria to be food safe. You have to wash both of them to be food safe.

Plastic, you can sterilize. Wood you can't. This is why Health Departments require plastic for food service environments.

You don't need a board for kneading dough. It can simplify clean up but that's the extent of things. For some doughs, a marble surface is better for how it keeps the dough cooler, less natural stickiness and so forth.

I want a board for dough. I don't have a table suitable for dough. I need a surface to put over either a small table or the oven range to use as the surface.

 

[pepperhead212]

When I was first getting into cooking, in those kitchens for 4, back in school, I got a piece of muslin, about 28" square, if I recall, and kneaded dough on it, rolled dough on it, and other things the thing was sold for. I don't even remember what they called it, but it just got a bunch of flour rubbed into it, before working on it.

 

[taxlady]

Pepper, it's called a pastry cloth. I only mention it to making DuckDuckGoing (Googling) it easier. That really does sound like a good solution, if @Cooking4Fun has a flat surface to put it on.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I want a board for dough. I don't have a table suitable for dough. I need a surface to put over either a small table or the oven range to use as the surface.

Amazon has Cutting Board Stove Top Covers in all price ranges. I have one myself, mostly for working with doubh, but it also gives me another counter surface to work on without messing up my glass top stove.

I prefere wood cutting bosrds because plastic dulls your knives. I especially like bamboo boards because they do not require a ton of maintenance and they're inexpensive to buy and replace.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

Oops!

 

[pictonguy]

In my restaurant, health guidelines dictated plastic cutting boards, which worked perfectly fine especially if you understand the sources and the fact that they can be ordered any thickness, size and color. Personally I use wood and do have a couple of smaller plastic ones for convenience of clean up for small jobs.