The 9 Best Ice Cube Trays

The DOQAUS set answers the two complaints that make people abandon ice trays. The base is flexible silicone, so a cube pops free under thumb pressure instead of requiring you to crack the whole tray against the counter. The lid snaps down over the top, which stops water sloshing onto the freezer shelf on the walk from the sink and, more importantly, keeps the frozen surface of each cube away from freezer air.

Capacity is where this set separates from single tray products. Four trays with flat lids stack into a column, so a full rotation gives you a genuine supply rather than sixteen cubes and a wait. The lids are the structural element that makes stacking work, so this is a set where the lid is not an accessory.

The weakness is inherent to the material. Food-grade silicone is mildly porous, so a tray that has spent a month next to strong-smelling leftovers will eventually pass a faint taste into the water. The lid slows this considerably but does not eliminate it, and washing in hot soapy water rather than rinsing matters more here than with rigid plastic.

Bottom line: if you want one set to cover everyday ice for a household and you are willing to wash the trays properly, this is the most complete option on the list.

• Material: food-grade silicone base with plastic lid
• Quantity: 4 trays with individual lids
• Cube size: roughly 1.3 inch
• Certification: BPA free, LFGB listed, odor free
• Temperature range: -20 C to 80 C
• Design: stackable flat lids, dishwasher safe

Households that empty a tray a day rather than a tray a week, and anyone whose freezer holds strong-smelling food that makes a lid non-negotiable. Also a sensible pick for an RV or a second fridge where the freezer compartment is small and vertical stacking is the only way to get capacity.

Less suited to someone who only wants a single tray for occasional use, where a one or two tray set costs less and takes less shelf space.

Wash with hot water and dish soap before first use and whenever the ice starts tasting of anything at all. A quick cold rinse is not enough for silicone, which holds residue in the surface. Air dry fully before refilling, since trapped water freezes cubes together.

If a tray has picked up a smell, a soak in a solution of warm water and white vinegar usually resets it. Keep one tray dedicated to food portions and the others to drinking water to avoid the problem entirely.

This is a system rather than a tray. You fill two trays, twist them over the bin, and the round cubes drop out without your fingers ever touching the ice. Refill, freeze, repeat, and within a day the bin holds far more ice than the trays themselves could ever hold at once.

The round shape is doing real work. A sphere has less surface area for its volume than a cube of the same width, so it melts a little more slowly, and it looks deliberate in a glass of iced coffee or a cocktail in a way a rectangular cube does not.

The trade-off is footprint. A tray plus bin arrangement occupies more freezer space than a flat stack of trays, and round ice rolls rather than settling, so a tall glass filled with spheres holds less ice than the same glass filled with cubes.

Bottom line: the right pick if you want ice ready on demand and you like the look of round ice, provided your freezer has room for the bin.

• Cube shape: 1 inch round
• Included: 2 trays, storage bin, tong
• Release: easy twist
• Lid: spill resistant, odor blocking
• Design: stackable
• Colour: blue

Fill through the lid opening until water levels itself across the wells, then freeze flat for roughly four hours. Twist the tray in both hands over the open bin and the spheres release together. Refill immediately and stack the tray back on top of the bin so the cycle continues without thinking about it.

For clearer round ice, use water that has been boiled and cooled, which drives off dissolved air before freezing.

Iced coffee drinkers and anyone who entertains, where having a bin of ice ready beats waiting on a tray. Also useful for households where several people take ice through the day, since the bin absorbs the demand that would otherwise empty a tray by noon.

This is the tray most people picture when they think of an ice tray, and it survives because the design works. Twist the rigid frame and all sixteen cubes crack loose at once, which is faster than pushing cubes out one at a time when you are filling a pitcher.

Rigid plastic has one clear advantage over silicone that rarely gets mentioned: it is not porous, so it does not take on the smell of the freezer the way soft silicone does. For a household that goes through ice quickly and keeps a clean freezer, that removes the main reason to pay for lids.

The absence of a lid is the real trade-off. Water sloshes on the way to the freezer, ice sits exposed to freezer air, and the trays cannot stack with anything on top without crushing the cubes. Cold plastic also becomes brittle, so a hard twist on a tray straight from a deep freeze can crack the frame.

Bottom line: the best value here by a wide margin, as long as you accept an open tray.

• Material: rigid plastic
• Capacity: 16 cubes per tray, 64 total
• Quantity: 4 trays
• Release: full tray twist
• Lid: none
• Care: dishwasher safe, top rack

Choose this style if your freezer is clean and odor free, if you use ice fast enough that it never sits for weeks, and if you want maximum cubes for minimum money. Choose silicone with lids instead if your freezer holds fish, onions, or anything else aromatic, or if you need to stack trays vertically to fit.

A practical middle path many households land on: this set for volume, plus one lidded silicone tray for the ice that goes into water rather than into a cooler.

Wash on the top rack of a dishwasher or by hand. Let the tray warm for a minute before twisting if it has been in a deep freezer, since very cold plastic is brittle and more likely to crack. Store the trays nested when not in use to save space.

Airabc builds this set around a removable lid rather than a hinged one, and that choice matters more than it sounds. A lid that comes off entirely can be washed into its corners and dried properly. A hinged lid is quicker in daily use but collects residue where the hinge meets the tray.

The silicone base behaves as expected: push from underneath and a single cube releases without disturbing the rest, which is the advantage flexible trays hold over rigid ones. Flat lids let four trays stack into a column, so the set fits a narrow freezer shelf better than four trays laid side by side.

Fourteen cubes per tray is a slightly unusual count, two below the classic sixteen. Across four trays that is a difference of eight cubes against a standard set, which matters only if you are running the freezer at full tilt.

Bottom line: a well judged everyday set, and the removable lid is the detail that earns its place over similar silicone trays.

• Material: silicone with removable plastic lid
• Capacity: 14 cubes per tray, 4 trays
• Cube size: 3.8 x 2.8 x 2.2 cm
• Tray size: 25.4 x 9.8 cm
• Certification: LFGB certified, BPA free, rated -20 C to 80 C
• Design: stackable, dishwasher safe

Anyone with a crowded freezer who still wants lids. The flat stack is the point here: four trays occupy roughly the footprint of one. Also a good fit for households that care about certification, since LFGB is the stricter European food-contact standard rather than the more commonly cited baseline.

Fill to just below the rim, seat the lid, and freeze on a flat shelf. To release, remove the lid, flex the tray gently, then push individual cubes up from below. Twisting a filled silicone tray the way you would twist rigid plastic is unnecessary and shortens the life of the base.

PHINOX does not twist and it does not flex. The lid carries a plate of pillars, and pressing that lid down flat pushes every cube through the tray into the bin underneath in about a second. It is the least physical release on this list, which matters if grip strength is a consideration, and it means the ice never touches your hands.

Fifty six cubes comes from two tiers of twenty eight rather than one large tray, and the cubes themselves are 0.8 inch rather than the usual inch. That is a deliberate choice: smaller cubes chill a glass faster and fit more shapes of tumbler, at the cost of melting sooner. The manufacturer rates the plastic from -150 F to 140 F, so it tolerates a deep freezer and a dishwasher alike.

Rigid PP and ABS rather than silicone means the set does not pick up freezer smells, so ice that sits in the bin for a week still tastes like water. The scoop matters more than it looks: reaching in by hand warms the top layer and fuses it into a block, and the scoop avoids that entirely.

Bottom line: the pick for people who want volume, a genuinely effortless release, and rigid plastic rather than silicone, provided the bin fits the shelf.

• Material: food-grade PP and ABS, BPA free
• Cube size: 0.8 inch, roughly 0.51 cu in per cube
• Capacity: 56 cubes, 28 per tier across 2 tiers
• Temperature range: -150 F to 140 F
• Included: tray, pillar-plate lid, storage bin, scoop
• Release: press the lid, cubes drop into the bin

Fill the tray to the moulded water line rather than by eye, seat the lid, and freeze flat. To release, press the lid down evenly with both palms and the pillars push the whole tier into the bin at once. Refill immediately and repeat, since two or three cycles are what fill the bin. Use the scoop rather than your hand so the cubes at the surface do not partially melt and refreeze into a block.

Measure the height of your freezer shelf before buying any tray and bin set. The bin is what makes this system work and it is also the part most likely not to fit. If clearance is tight, a flat stack of lidded trays gives similar capacity in a shorter package, though without the loose-ice convenience.

OXO solves the structural problem with flexible trays by combining a silicone base with a rigid frame. A full soft-silicone tray sags in the middle when you lift it, which is how water ends up on the freezer shelf. The frame here keeps the tray flat while the base still flexes enough to release cubes cleanly.

The lid seals well enough to carry a filled tray across a kitchen without spilling, and it doubles as the stacking surface for the second tray. Two trays is modest capacity, which is the honest limitation of this set against four tray alternatives.

What you are paying for is consistency. This is a kitchen brand with a long track record, and the build quality on the frame and lid is noticeably better than generic equivalents, which matters on a part that gets twisted several times a week for years.

Bottom line: the pick when you want one dependable tray design rather than the largest possible stack.

• Material: flexible silicone base with rigid frame
• Quantity: 2 trays, blue and white
• Lid: spill-proof, stackable
• Release: twist
• Care: dishwasher safe
• Use: freezer storage, kitchen accessory

Smaller households and anyone who has already been through a cheap silicone tray that sagged and spilled. This is the buy-once option rather than the highest capacity one, and the rigid frame is the specific feature worth paying for.

Dishwasher safe, though hand washing in hot soapy water keeps the silicone surface neutral longer. Dry the lid seal fully before closing it, since trapped moisture freezes the lid to the tray and makes the first opening harder than it should be.

ChefAide takes the same hybrid approach as the OXO tray but scales it to four trays. Silicone wells sit inside a plastic frame, so cubes release under thumb pressure while the tray itself stays flat when carried full.

Fifty six cubes across four trays puts this between the sixteen-cube classics and the bin-based systems. You get real capacity without the vertical clearance a bin demands, which is the practical reason to choose it.

The lids seat firmly, firmly enough that the first few uses take a deliberate press to close. That is preferable to the opposite problem, since a loose lid defeats the purpose, but it is worth knowing before you assume something is wrong.

Bottom line: a sensible middle option, and the strongest choice if you want lids and volume but cannot fit a storage bin.

• Material: silicone wells with plastic frame
• Capacity: 56 cubes total
• Quantity: 4 trays with lids
• Design: stackable
• Release: easy release molds
• Use: cocktails, coffee, drinks

Compare this against bin-based sets on one axis: freezer geometry. If you have shelf area but little height, a flat four tray stack like this wins. If you have height and want loose ice on demand, a tray and bin set serves better. Capacity between the two is roughly comparable.

Fill each tray to just under the rim, press the lid down until it seats all the way around, and freeze on a level shelf. Release by flexing the silicone from below rather than twisting the frame, which is what the hybrid construction is designed for.

This mold exists for one reason and does it well. A two inch block has far less surface area relative to its volume than a standard cube, so it absorbs heat more slowly and dilutes a drink far less. For bourbon or an old fashioned, that is the whole game.

Silicone is the right material at this size. A rigid mold makes a two inch block almost impossible to remove without running it under water, which defeats the purpose by melting the surface. The flexible walls here peel away from the block instead.

The cost is time. A two inch cube freezes from the outside in and the center is the last part to solidify, so plan on six hours or more rather than the three or four a standard tray needs. Pulling a block early gives you a shell with liquid inside, which cracks in a glass.

Bottom line: not an everyday tray, and not meant to be. As a dedicated spirits mold it is the correct tool.

• Cube size: 2 inch square blocks
• Capacity: 8 cubes across 2 molds
• Material: flexible silicone
• Release: peel and push
• Freeze time: roughly 6 hours or more
• Use: whiskey, cocktails, coffee

Fill with water that has been boiled and cooled for a clearer block, then freeze on a level shelf overnight rather than for an afternoon. To release, peel one wall of the mold away from the block first, then push from underneath. Store finished blocks in a sealed bag or bin so they do not pick up freezer odor before you use them.

Anyone who drinks spirits neat or in a short cocktail and has watched a drink thin out over twenty minutes. Also useful for anyone freezing stock or coffee in large portions, where a two inch block equals a much larger measure than a standard cube.

Pebble ice is the closest a home freezer gets to the nugget ice from a commercial machine, and the reason to want it is not only that it is chewable. Half inch pieces pour through the neck of a sports bottle or a reusable tumbler, where a one inch cube simply will not go.

Surface area works in both directions. All those small pieces chill a drink almost immediately, which is the appeal, and they also melt faster than any full size cube, which is the cost. For iced coffee poured over the top and drunk within twenty minutes, that trade is worth making.

The bin matters more here than with larger cubes. Left loose in an open container, pebble ice partially melts at the surface and refreezes into a single lump. A closed bin and the included scoop keep the pieces separate for far longer.

Bottom line: a specialist tray that solves a specific problem, and the only option here for a narrow-mouth bottle.

• Ice size: 0.55 inch pebbles
• Included: 2 trays, bin, scoop
• Release: easy twist
• Lid: sealed, odor blocking
• Design: stackable
• Use: iced coffee, bottles, juice

Pour water in through the lid until it levels itself across the wells rather than filling each well individually, which is the design intent and much faster. Freeze for roughly ninety minutes, then twist over the bin. Keep the bin closed between uses so the pebbles stay loose.

Iced coffee drinkers, anyone who fills a narrow sports bottle daily, and people who genuinely like chewing ice and would otherwise buy bagged nugget ice. Not the right pick as a household's only tray, since pebble ice melts too quickly for a glass of water left on a desk.