The $60 2-in-1 Cutting Board That Transforms into a Pro-Chef-Worthy Meal-Prep Station
For me, making dinner is like painting a room. I spend a ton of time on prep work — cleaning dirty dishes in the sink, washing and cutting vegetables, dicing garlic and herbs — and only 10 or 15 minutes doing the actual activity at hand (cooking). I wish I could get through the prep phase quicker, but I’m never able to. That results in late dinner times, which roll into late bedtimes, which are not great.
I suspect what’s dragging me down is all the time I spend organizing cut-up ingredients. I don’t have a dedicated set of prep bowls, so I end up searching through bowls in my cupboards, filling them with broccoli, peppers, and tofu, and balancing them haphazardly across my tiny countertop. I want a more efficient, stream-lined approach, and I think I found the solution: a cutting board with prep containers built into it.
This bamboo cutting board may look ordinary, but inside is a hidden platform that extends over your sink to hold a strainer. That means you can slide food directly into the washing area as you finish cutting it up, rather than pausing to carry it over (and dropping bits along the way). After giving your ingredients a rinse, you can toss them into one of four included silicone containers. These containers fit into the same opening in the cutting board that holds the strainer, so you can swap them in when you’re cutting stuff that doesn’t need to be rinsed. And, because they’re microwaveable and come with locking lids, you can use them to store and reheat leftovers.
The strainer, containers, and lids are all dishwasher-safe and collapsible, which makes them easy to clean as well as store away compactly in your cabinets. I love the way the containers work with the cutting board to create a food prep system that keeps your work area neat and doesn’t take up too much room. Ingredients go straight from them into the pan, then back inside when you’re putting away leftovers. Plus, when you’re done slicing and dicing, the pull-out section of the cutting board slides back to save space.
I would definitely like to have this two-in-one cutting and organizing tool anytime I cook larger pieces of meat such as chicken breasts or thighs. I always make too much for one meal, and it would be super convenient to be able to cut them up and move them into a storage container as I’m plating dinner. I don’t need to be able to cook dinner as quickly as a restaurant chef, but this is an easy and smart improvement that would save valuable time for any home cook.