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Jul 13, 2023

5 Best Ice Cube Trays of 2023, Tested by Experts

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process. Ice, ice, baby (too cool). On

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Ice, ice, baby (too cool).

On the surface, ice is pretty simple. It's just frozen water, right? Well, clocking in at 1.3 billion views, #icetok is a huge trend on TikTok, with entire channels devoted to ice drawer restocks that feature infused ice, iced coffee cubes, shaped cubes and more. While we aren't suggesting tossing out the contents of your freezer to dedicate the space to only ice (unless you want to, then go and live your best ice-girly life), a tray or two of ice is always a good idea to keep kicking around.

Here at the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances & Innovation Lab, we test hundreds of products to find the best cooking and drinking products like drinking glasses, meal prep containers and cocktail shakers. Our picks for the best ice cube trays are based on our experts' product knowledge, road testing, best sellers from well-known brands and highly rated bartending kits.

Keep reading to the end of this article to see what to look for when shopping for ice cube trays. Looking for more drinks? Check out our articles on the best coffee beans and best tea brands.

For fancy ice with fruit, vegetables or anything else you want suspended in your ice, try out this silicone ice cube tray from Trovolo. The cubes are big enough to put in pieces of fruit so you can get that perfectly Instagram-worthy shot of your drink. We found the silicone to be sturdier and thicker than other silicone trays we've tested. Ice cubes slide out easily with a push. While this option doesn't include a lid, they do sell the same Perfect Ice Cube Tray with a lid on their site. They come in nine different colors so you can buy a few and color code them, if you're looking to infuse ice with multiple different ingredients.

If you're looking for just a quality ice cube tray at a good price, you're not going to get much better than this tray from OXO. The few features it has are thoughtful, like the cover that clicks into place and channels between cubes to allow water to overflow into other spaces. There are large handles on each side for easy carrying and if you get multiple, they're designed to stack in the freezer. We did find that the cover sticks a little and you have to push to get it to click into place.

Our Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab Director, Nicole Papantoniou, has been using this ice cube tray from Lekue for years. She doesn't have an ice cube maker in her freezer (who does in NYC?) and loves how easy it is to fill the tray. The fun shapes look good in drinks and the included storage bin fits up to three trays of ice. The ice cube tray itself acts as the lid to the container, so note that you can't place anything on top of it. She says the cubes are easy to pop out and after years of owning this tray, she hasn't noticed any odors.

Here's another tray that's loved by Papantoniou. She notes that even after years of use, the quality silicone hasn't worn down. The hole in the center allows you to fill it up to the perfect capacity, and then overflow in case you add too much water. Handles on the sides make them easier to carry and help pop the ice out of the mold too. These come in a bunch of other shapes like lime wedges and a faceted heart. If you get two in the same shape, they stack on top of each other.

We found this tray from Dexas during our testing for how to make clear ice, and we've loved it ever since. It's a more cumbersome process than just pouring water in a tray and putting it in the freezer, but we found that it produces clear cubes that are perfect for the aesthetic cocktail. There aren't any handles but the tray is wide and thick so it's easy to grip and very sturdy. Inside of the plastic insert there are lines so you can judge how much the silicone molds will displace the water so you don't run into an overflow situation. When you want to clean the tray, the plastic insert pops out easily, and we haven't noticed any odors.

Here at the Good Housekeeping Institute's Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, we've been testing kitchen gadgets and products, including drinkware and even drinks themselves in our Coffee and Tea Awards. For best ice cube trays, we included picks that our experts liked from personal road testing at home and in the Lab. We looked dozens of trays that were best sellers and highly rated too to narrow down the options to the best trays.

✔️ Size: If it can't fit in your freezer, it's not going to do you much good. It's a good idea to see how much extra space you have (or how much extra space you can make) to fit in an ice cube tray without cramming your freezer full and creating a Tetris situation every time you want to chill your drink.

✔️ Lid: Not only can a lid allow you to stack things on top of the ice cube trays, like other ice cube trays, but it also keeps other stuff out of your water while it's freezing.

✔️ Material: The most common materials for ice cube trays are silicone and plastic, but you can also find stainless steel ice cube trays. Plastic is more rigid and won't flop over the edge of a box, but it can be harder to get the ice out because it doesn't have the flex silicone does to push your fingers into. Silicone is great for uniquely shaped ice because you can more easily maneuver it around, but it doesn't stay flat when full and can become brittle over time.

During her time working at the Good Housekeeping Institute, Abigail Bailey has tested, researched and written about everything from Japanese knives to hammocks. She loves a perfectly chilled glass of iced tea or cold brew coffee any day of the year, and is known to enjoy iced drinks even in the dead of winter.

Abigail (she/her) covers everything from kitchen gear to mattresses and smart blinds for the Institute, as well as assisting the General Manager in any number of projects. She graduated from Louisiana State University with a B.A. in creative writing, as well as earning her M.S. in publishing digital and print media from New York University. Before GH, she worked at LSU Press and The Southern Review literary magazine. In her free time you can find her quilting, cross-stitching or trying to figure out how to squeeze one more bookshelf in her tiny apartment.

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