I Cut Raw Chicken, Brisket And Onions On 6 Cutting Boards For 30 Days. Five Of Them Failed.
Scored on knife edge, stains, smell, warping and how long clean-up took. The winner surprised me, and it wasn’t the expensive one.
The six boards on day one. Left to right: plastic, bamboo, maple end-grain, glass, stainless steel, titanium.
I’ve been through eleven cutting boards in twenty years and I’ve ruined three good knives on them. Last month a $160 slicing knife went dull on a glass board in under a week, and that was the last straw. I bought six boards, one of every type, and put them through the same month.
- 01Raw chicken thighs trimmed on each board, three times a week, then washed the normal way
- 02One smoked brisket sliced on each board (juice, bark and all)
- 03Onions, garlic and beets on each board, then a sniff test the next morning
- 04Same knife on every board, sharpened to shave at the start, then the paper test on day 30
- 05Dishwasher once a week for anything that claimed it could take it
Each board got a score out of ten in five categories: knife edge after 30 days, stains, smell, warping or cracking, and clean-up time. Fifty points available. Here’s how it went, worst to first.
The results, ranked
Tempered glass board
Looks clean, scores well on stains, and it wrecked the knife. Glass is harder than the steel in your blade, so every cut rolls the edge over. By day nine the knife tore paper instead of slicing it. It also skates: the knife slid off a wet onion twice. A tempered glass board is a plate, not a cutting board.
Stainless steel board
Better than glass, still hard on the knife. The sound of a blade on steel is like fingernails on a chalkboard, and it’s heavy: just over four pounds. Mine took a bend at one corner from the dishwasher heat and now it rocks on the counter. Rust spots showed up along the edge by week three.
Plastic board (the one most of us own)
Kind to the knife, and that’s the problem: the knife is taking the board apart. After a month it looked like the one in the photo, grooved all over, with beet and turmeric stains down in the cuts that no scrubbing shifted. The chicken-juice smell came back the morning after every wash. It also warped in the dishwasher. And every one of those grooves is plastic that went into the food; researchers at North Dakota State put it at up to 79 million particles a year from one board.
Bamboo board
Bamboo is harder than it looks, so it took more off the edge than the maple did. The real failure was the glue: bamboo boards are strips glued together, and after the dishwasher mine opened up along two seams. Chicken juice went straight into the gaps. You can’t put it in the dishwasher and you can’t leave it in the sink, so it needs oiling and babysitting.
Maple end-grain butcher block
The knife loved it. The edge was as good on day 30 as day 1. But it weighs eleven pounds, it cost the most by a mile, and it’s wood: beet juice sank in and stayed, the raw-chicken side needed a bleach wipe, and the brisket left a dark patch. It can never see a dishwasher. If you oil it every month and keep raw meat off it, it’s a beautiful board. I have three kids. I don’t.
Kiru titanium board
I expected a metal board to do what the steel one did. It didn’t, and the reason is hardness. Titanium is softer than the hardened steel in a knife edge, so the blade doesn’t roll on it, and it’s a solid metal, so the blade can’t carve anything out of it either. On day 30 the knife still sliced paper cleanly. The board had no marks on it.
Beets, turmeric, brisket bark and raw chicken all rinsed off under the tap in a few seconds, and nothing smelled the next morning because there is nothing for the smell to soak into. It went through the dishwasher four times and came out flat. It weighs 1.3 pounds, lighter than the plastic one. The only point I took off was for sound: a knife on it is louder than on wood.
Day 30 paper test. Left: the knife used on titanium. Right: the knife used on glass.
Kiru Titanium Cutting Board
- Solid food-grade titanium. No plastic, no coating, nothing to shed or soak in
- Softer than a knife edge, so the blade stays sharp (49/50 in my test)
- Double-sided: raw meat on one face, everything else on the other. Juice groove all the way round
- Dishwasher-safe. Rinses clean in seconds. No oiling, ever
- 1.3 lb, 15 x 10 inches. Won’t warp, crack, stain, smell or rust
On an early Black Friday deal right now: $49.00 instead of $98.00. Less per board for two or three.
See The Winning Board →Free US shipping · 60-day money-back guarantee
Thirty days, six boards, one I’d buy again. If you’ve got a knife you care about and a family that eats raw chicken three nights a week, that’s the one.