10 best chopping boards tried and tested

Best chopping boards to buy at a glance

• Best chopping board set: Joseph Joseph folio chopping board set, £45
• Best chopping board for families: Salter bamboo chopping board with lip, £29.05
• Best for design: MasterClass non-slip raised chopping station, £16.48
• Best chopping board for versatility: Brabantia Tasty+ chopping board set, £22
• Best eco-friendly chopping board: Smidge Slice chopping board, £17.60
• Best investment chopping board: Oak & Rope personalised chopping board, from £165
• Best budget chopping board: ProCook non-slip chopping board, £8
• Best chopping board for storage: Marks & Spencer hexagonal rectangular large chopping board, £19.50
• Best chopping board for presentation: Robert Welch pebble oak chopping board, £42
• Best large chopping board: Cole & Mason Berden extra-large acacia wood board, £50

Best chopping boards to buy

Joseph Joseph Folio chopping board set

Best chopping board set

The latest in a whole stable of functional worktop savers from Joseph Joseph, a company that never fails to come up with solutions to niggling kitchen problems. This time, it’s a set of boards for those with space-challenged kitchens.

This ‘library’ solution keeps four boards snug in a slim, upright storage box, which can sit unobtrusively against a wall or splash-back. In a choice of two different colourways, either brights or greys, each one is in a different shade, so you could decide to keep one solely for veg, meat or strongly-flavoured foods such as spices and fish.

The boards themselves are uniformly sized and performed well, their corner ‘feet’ gripping worktops with food items held in place thanks to a subtly textured surface. Choose from regular (20x30cm) or large (24x34cm).

There’s space for air to circulate around each chopping board too, so it’s a great way to keep boards dry and hygienic once out of the dishwasher – they came out looking good as new.

Salter bamboo chopping board with lip

• Available from Amazon (£29.05)

Best chopping board for families

We liked an outstanding design feature of this bamboo choice – an ingenious lip at the front edge which butted securely against the counter to make slicing and chopping safe and secure. It gave a mess-free way to slide peelings off the edge of the worktop and into a compost caddy, too.

Food didn’t slide off the back either, since the board can be flipped to stop cross-contamination – another upside.

It’s a nice size for family food prep, 38x32cm – one of the bigger models in our selection.

As per the instructions, we used coarse salt and a lemon to keep this no-soak worktop saver scrubbed clean between different foods in one chopping session. Additional hand-washing and drying ensured it stayed fresh-looking without staining, compared to some other wooden boards we tried.

It has a five year guarantee when registered, so look after it and it will be a countertop stalwart.

Available from:
Amazon (£29.05)

MasterClass non-slip raised chopping station

• Available from CookServeEnjoy (£16.48)

Best for design

This chopping board’s USP is the two little removable containers at one end. This means that once you’ve finished chopping, you can just sweep them into the tub and get on with the next task, separating your ingredients and leaving space on the board. We also used it as a bin for peelings. One of the two containers has straining holes, so it doubles up as a sieve or colander, too. Anything that saves on washing-up is a winner for us.

There’s a technique to be learned to remove these – you need to slide them first, then they lift out easily. It means that when slotted back, they are very secure. As an extra bonus, they have ml/cup measurements, though as they are black-on-black, they aren’t always easy to read.

The board itself is a neutral grey and pleasantly sturdy. It’s a doddle to wash. It wipes down very easily – no beetroot stains here – and you can also put it in the dishwasher.

Available from:
CookServeEnjoy (£16.48)

Brabantia Tasty+ chopping board set

Best chopping board for versatility

This set of boards by Brabantia gave us a choice of three great cutting areas. The largest also served (literally) as a lipped tray for serving up meals or transporting cuppas to the next room.

We used it as a breakfast tray – it was the perfect size for bacon sarnies and tea for two. Flip it over and you have a rock steady board with enough space for large meal prep.

Nesting side by side inside the larger board, the two smaller surfaces of our test model were in different tones of green and looked great in the kitchen. These stayed unblemished no matter what we chopped and sliced, repelling smells and stains and saving stray juices in the channels running around their borders.

Although guaranteed by Brabantia for five years, it points out that hot pans shouldn’t be rested on them – bear that in mind if you’re prone to plonking hot trays on boards straight from the oven.

Smidge Slice chopping board

• Available from Harts of Stur (£17.60)

Best eco-friendly chopping board

There’s lots to like about this hardworking Smidge chopping board. Crucially, it stands out from a sea of lookalikes as it’s made from sustainable materials rather than plastic.

Salvaged paper is compressed to make a rock solid board that can withstand heavy duty use without blunting knives. The squishy, removable silicone corners meant it stayed firmly in place on the worktop. Don’t want to oil or hand-wash a wooden board? This can go straight in the dishwasher.

Available in three sizes, we tested the largest version, and at a roomy 44x32cm, it came into its own when prepping sofrito for a marathon batch cooking session.

Believe it or not, it’s also ovenproof to a temperature of 240C – once we’d prepared our bolognese, we gave the board a rinse and used it for heating (and serving) homemade garlic bread.

Available from:
Harts of Stur (£17.60)

Oak and Rope personalised carving board

• Available from The Oak & Rope Company (from £165)

Best investment chopping board

Yes, it’s far more expensive than any other board here, but its style and quality are another level. It may seem strange to get excited about a slab of oak, but this expertly handcrafted piece would make a beautiful wedding gift or family heirloom.

These boards are individually made of English oak and hand-carved with your choice of words on each side of it its chunky 50cm lengths.

Most popular orders read ‘Mum/Dad’s Sunday Roast’ or give namechecks or birth dates, but get as creative as you like. Oak and Rope want to make every individual board bespoke.

Another nice touch is a deep, carved channel running around the edge with a scooped well in one corner, so juices won’t spill if carving at the table. The grooved ‘spout’ makes transferring liquids into another vessel easy, and insures every last drop from a juicy roast can be poured into the gravy mix.

Whether the Christmas turkey or a Sunday rib of beef, this board will make every single carving an occasion, holding meat in place with screw-in stainless steel spikes.

• Available from The Oak & Rope Company (from £165)

ProCook non-slip chopping board

Best budget chopping board

This little board soon became a firm favourite. Easy to use, lightweight and versatile – all for a very reasonable £8.

It has a handle, is reversible and keeps firm on surfaces without slipping thanks to rubber corners. Grooves on either side led to a narrowed ‘slope’ at one end of the board, great for sliding chopped ingredients into a pan easily.

Of course, that means lots of fruit or meat juice can leak off the board, so best to avoid using for cutting the Sunday joint. Nevertheless, this bargain performed well, cleaning like a dream in the dishwasher and stashing away snugly in the narrowest of cupboard spaces.

Marks & Spencer hexagonal rectangular large chopping board

• Available from M&S (£19.50)

Best chopping board for storage

This board is lighter to hold than it looks, and well designed for its price tag.

The useful grab handle means it can be hung from a meat hook-style rack – a nice option for storage.

The herringbone alignment of the wood looks great, but makes the surface less smooth than others tested, and means it’s more likely to split with heavy, long-term use.

But for now, it withstood our drop test and stayed looking pristine after lots of chopping, hand-washing (this one’s not for the dishwasher) and splashing with beetroot juice and spiced chicken joints, heavy on the turmeric.

Available from:
M&S (£19.50)

Robert Welch pebble chopping board 32cm

• Available from Farrar & Tanner (£42), Robert Welch (£42)

Best chopping board for presentation

In a world of oblong chopping boards, be pebble-shaped. This option, from British company Robert Welch, is made with a smooth, solid oak that’s a nice alternative to the usual style. It looks great on display in the kitchen or used to present food on the dining table.

Staying unscored after hefty knife use, it wiped down easily and seemed more water resistant than others when given a thorough hand-wash. However, to avoid any warping, we followed instructions to dry it straight afterwards and made sure not to soak or immerse it in water.

Solid oak with a food-safe oiled finish, this felt lovely to handle, with soft, tapered edges. We tried the 32cm version, which was a good size for making and serving lunchtime sandwiches.

There’s a larger 44cm version, and since it’s surprisingly light for such a solid board, it would also be a versatile worktop-to-table choice.

Available from:
Farrar & Tanner (£42)
Robert Welch (£42)

Cole & Mason Berden extra-large acacia wood carving chopping and serving board

• Available from Cole & Mason (£50)

Best large chopping board

You’re unlikely to run out of space when you’re using this chunky, solid wood board, which measures in at a hefty 46 x 34cm. There’s plenty of room for chopping a sizeable amount of vegetables, so it’s ideal for those cooking for the masses. The big surface also doubles up as an attractive serving board.

This has another trick up its sleeve, too: flip it over and the other side is designed for carving meat, with ridges to collect juices that then flow into the deeper well in one corner. There’s a small space next to the well for draining those juices off – another useful detail.

The board is made of acacia and it’s on the heavy side. We were very nervous when performing the drop test, but it survived intact. You’ll need to wash this by hand, but it scrubbed up well and the purple beetroot stains came out with no problem.

Available from:
Cole & Mason (£50)

How we tested chopping boards

We tested a representative sample of chopping boards made from wood, bamboo, plastic and eco-friendly recycled material and scored them using the following criteria.

The Good Food ‘drop test’: reasoning that over its lifespan, a chopping board suffers lots of knocks and scrapes, we dropped them from knee height to see if they stayed intact.

Extra functions and aesthetics: boards come in all shapes and sizes – some with spikes to secure meat, others with knife sharpeners and folding sides. We rated the extra functions on whether they’re worth the extra money. We poured water over boards with moats to check whether the groove captured all the liquid – in an everyday kitchen, a substandard moat equals wasted meat juices.

No marks: we put each board through a rigorous test of chopping and hacking with a sharp knife to check whether the surface was left with irremovable marks. Chopping boards naturally suffer wear-and-tear, but we wouldn’t expect them to damage easily on first use.

Ease of washing: we used beetroot during testing to check whether the board would absorb colours and odours that can’t be removed with warm soapy water.

Which chopping board should I buy?

There are myriad chopping boards to choose from. Many people like a solid wooden board, some of which are good-looking enough to double as a serving platter. Wooden boards are great for bread and carving meat – they often have a little moat for catching juices.

However, they’re more likely to absorb odours and stains than plastic chopping boards, although hard wood is less absorbent than soft. A wooden chopping board shouldn’t be exposed to lots of water as it might warp or crack, and if you’re a real geek you should treat it with oil to keep it shipshape.

Teak is a reliable wood type, but equally as important is the style of chopping board – one solid piece of wood may be more likely to withstand the test of time than a board made up of lots of layers or pieces of wood joined together.

Plastic (polypropylene etc) chopping boards are seldom as attractive as their wooden counterparts, but they win on hygiene (and often price) as they can be colour-coded for particular tasks, as seen in professional kitchens (red for raw meat, blue for raw fish and so on) and can withstand rigorous washing and sanitising.

Clever new designs include chopping boards with folding sides, to funnel your chopped food into a pan or bowl. Bamboo chopping boards are excellent and often quite reasonable, so we included them in our test.

Whichever board you choose, remember to consider the tasks you’ll be using it for, where you’ll be storing it, whether you want a handle on your board to hang it up, and whether it’s non-slip, as you don’t want your board skidding all over the place.

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This review was last updated in September 2023. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.