From stackable silicone options to a stainless steel model, you’ll never have to use a plastic ice cube tray again
Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things
Jump to:
For those of us without a luxury refrigerator, an ice cube tray can be a tether to sanity. On hot summer days, it refreshes. At 6pm, it turns booze into a cocktail. In the morning, it can be an essential ingredient in the smoothie you drink while rushing to work.
Most classic ice cube trays, however, are made from hard plastic. If you’re like me, you grew up with them: stacking trays, that, if they were fancy, came with covers. So if you’re trying to cut plastic out of your kitchen and home, as so many people are, an upgrade is probably in order.
In the nearly 10 years that I have spent in my current apartment, with my current (imperfect) freezer, I have cycled through a few different options, from silicone and back to plastic. For years, I had a set of silicone ice cube trays, without a cover. These have the benefit of being plastic-free, looking sleek (with various color options), and releasing the ice easily: you never have to crack them on the counter, but instead pop the cubes like one of those fidget toys kids go wild for these days. Plus, if you’re into making cocktails for yourself or friends, they often come in big square options that look sexy in a rocks glass.
A few years in, though, I encountered an issue: my ice began to taste off, like an old freezer: like long-forgotten plastic, stubborn nubs of fat, abandoned recipes – a completely nontoxic but haunting stain. After some internet sleuthing, I learned that silicone absorbs smells over time. You can bake off some of these smells in a 200F (93C) oven for about an hour. (The downside of this is that your kitchen will, briefly, also smell like an old freezer.) This works, but I will probably never regularly bake my ice cube trays.
This year, I was determined to find new options. I was curious about the charmingly old-school stainless steel ice cube trays I had been seeing around, plus I wondered if finding a silicone ice cube tray with a lid might help with the whole smell situation. I set my sights exclusively on platinum-cured silicone, which is durable, odorless and doesn’t leach out potentially toxic siloxanes. This significantly narrowed down our options, especially as I refused to settle for a silicone tray with a plastic lid. I believe I have found some of the best plastic-free options out there for cocktail enthusiasts and hydration enthusiasts alike.
Why you should trust me
I’ve been writing about home cooking for nearly 15 years, and am always thinking of ways to circumvent the small issues that plague regular cooks every day. I also tend to use my ice cube trays every day, mostly for my morning smoothies. And I have been known to stir up a few Saturday evening negronis, chilled with a fat ice cube.
How I tested all these trays
There are only so many stress tests to put an ice cube tray through. I focused on all the subtle details of the basic ice-making process, mostly surrounding filling and release. I was particularly interested in testing out some of the newer stainless steel models. Some have a classic crank lever (which operate along a dramatically wide range of success), and some have a more traditional ice cube tray shape: rectangular cavities set into a rectangular tray, or miniature spheres shaped by two identical trays. The problem with these latter options was that they were nearly impossible to get out of their trays without a bit of melting. While I’m all for friction-maxxing, this was untenable for me. A good tray’s baseline is how easy it is to remove cubes. Shape and size also matter – I loved a silicone tray that had bigger cubes, but I found the ice unwieldy for my morning smoothies. Ultimately, the best ice cube tray should produce cubes suitable for a variety of icy needs.
I’ll be donating the ice cube trays I tested to St Mary’s Clothing Drive, a wonderful charity near my apartment in Brooklyn.
At a glance: the best ice cube trays in 2026
Best all around ice cube tray: Just Smart Kitchenware’s No-Spill Small Ice Cube Tray
Best tray for cocktail enthusiasts: Viski Ice Cube Tray
Best tray for tiny (or crowded) freezers: Firgi Silicone Ice Cube Freezer Tray
Best stainless steel ice cube tray: Ecozoi Large Cubes with Easy Release
Best all around ice cube tray:
Just Smart Kitchenware’s No-Spill Small Ice Cube Tray
This tray from the Australian kitchenware company Just Smart Kitchenware comes in a set of two, with a lid that easily lifts off, thanks to a corner tab.
Why we love it: This pair of happy green trays is the Goldilocks option of everything I tested. The cubes produced were mid-sized: not tiny, not huge; small enough for smoothies and big enough to plink a few into a glass for a cocktail. The lid attaches and detaches by “snapping” on to the outside of the tray, so you never have to worry about fitting a frozen bit of silicone into a groove. And since this is a pair of trays with sturdy lids, you can stack them easily right after filling.
The LFGB-certified silicone means that it’s rated even higher than the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food-grade standard, and you can easily pop it in the dishwasher if you want. (While I don’t have a dishwasher, I’ve read on various forums that using scented dishwasher liquid can impart smells into silicone.)
It’s a shame that … Even high-rated silicone can still absorb smells. (For advice on how to deal with this, head to the FAQs below.)
Best tray for cocktail enthusiasts:
Viski Ice Cube Tray
Why we love it: Viski’s silicone tray comes with a lid and the cubes pop out super easily, thanks to the large cavities. The resultant ice is a little too large for, say, a smoothie or a narrow water glass. But they’re perfect for a spirit-forward drink, like a Manhattan or a negroni, or what I like to call “booze in a cup” (any liquor of your choosing, on the rocks). Viski also makes a handful of other cocktail-focused ice cube molds, so you can tailor the shape to your preferred at-home drink– from long, rectangular highball ice cubes to a more dramatic mountain mold. Their cube molds all have lids, which allow for easy stacking and keep an errant fleck of food from attaching itself to your precious cocktail ice.
It’s a shame that … The large ice cubes aren’t suitable for my morning smoothie.
Best tray for tiny (or crowded) freezers:
Firgi 12-Cavity Silicone Ice Cube Freezer Tray
Why we love it: My freezer can get pretty packed – with CSA meat, random containers of homemade stock, bags of seafood and occasionally unlabeled bags of scraps. This slim, narrow ice cube tray is a great option because of its size: narrow enough to wedge itself in between a pint of ice-cream and a whole chicken. The silicone here sort of snaps into itself, with a double airtight lid. I liked how sturdy this seal felt, but it did require about one or two extra seconds of thought from my brain to make sure that everything was sealed correctly.
It’s a shame that ... I bought the single pack instead of the double, which would have solved the issue of occasionally not having enough ice cubes.
Best stainless steel ice cube tray:
Ecozoi Large Cubes with Easy Release
Why we love it: The great thing about stainless steel ice cube trays is that they don’t absorb smell the way that silicone does. The bad thing is that most of them don’t work.
Many of the “easy release” trays that I tested made it impossible to do so – the cubes were really more of an ice block that I banged endlessly on my counter in an effort to separate them. These trays come in two pieces: a tray and a lever mechanism that fits inside it, shaping the cubes. When your ice is frozen, you pull the lever, which is supposed to individuate the cubes by shifting the pressure among the “walls” separating them. The cheaper options offered on Amazon did not work at all. Even the more expensive Ecozoi easy release model in the traditional long shape was finicky: if I filled it up all the way, I didn’t find that the lever was strong enough to break up the ice. Luckily, the large square cube model I tested worked like a 1950s charm. The release works easily, and I actually liked that the resulting cubes were a little irregular.
It’s a shame that … Since this is metal, grabbing it from the freezer occasionally felt like sticking my tongue to a snowy telephone pole.
The Filter also tested these ice cube trays
Myyaowl Six-Cube Easy Release Tray
Vortihive Stainless Steel Ice Cube Tray
Captain Cranberry Metal Stainless Steel Ice Cube Tray
Ecozoi Small Round Ice Cube Trays
Ecozoi Stainless Steel Ice Cube Trays
Ecozoi Ice Maker Tray with Easy Release Handle
What you need to know about ice cube trays
Are silicone ice cube trays safe?
Silicone ice cube trays are generally nontoxic and safe to use, especially when they’re labeled “food-grade”. The best, or safest, are made from platinum-cured silicone, which is safe at the widest range of temperatures and ensures that potentially toxic siloxanes don’t leach out.
What is the difference between food-grade silicone and platinum-cured silicone?
Most silicone is cured with peroxide, while platinum silicone is cured with, well, platinum. This is the highest-grade silicone currently on the market, and is the safest for those concerned about leaching toxins. So if you’re worried about anything contaminating your ice cubes, platinum-cured silicone is a safer bet than food-grade silicone.
How long do ice cube trays take to freeze?
This will depend on your freezer, but they usually take about three to four hours; larger cubes tend to take longer, between four and six hours.
If my silicone does take on a smell, how do I get it out?
There are a few strategies for getting smells out of silicone. The simplest is to soak your tray in a 1:1 solution of water and vinegar for a few hours. Or you can try washing and drying your tray, then baking it in a 250 oven for 30-60 minutes. You can also rub the silicone with a 1:1 paste of baking soda and water, and let it sit overnight.
Other pieces you might enjoy from the Filter, the Guardian’s guide to buying fewer, better things:
The best water filter pitchers and dispensers in the US, tested in a lab
Yeti Rambler v Owala FreeSip: which trendy water bottle actually deserves the hype?
The non-plastic food storage containers we love are now on sale
