Remove Unwanted Odors from Cutting Boards with Just One Ingredient

I recently had to make an intense salad dressing that called for mincing up 18 anchovy fillets and six garlic cloves. Pungent and tasty, but my cutting board took a smelly beating from making this recipe. Here’s my favorite way of getting unwanted odors out of my cutting boards!

Some people use the lemon and salt method to clean wooden cutting boards, but I find the remaining lemon scent, while pleasant, might not be something I would want to scent everything I’m cutting up.

• Read more about this tip: How To Clean a Wooden Cutting Board with Lemon and Salt

But if you have some baking soda on hand, which you probably already do, here’s an easy cleaner that will remove all those pesky odors off your cutting boards.

Make a paste of one part water to three parts baking soda, scrub that into the board, and rinse off!

This effective odor-removing paste means that garlic or fishy flavors don’t transfer onto other foods, so you can even cut fruit on that board now! It works on plastic or wood and takes just a minute, leaving your cutting surfaces pleasantly odor-free.

More ways to use the magic of baking soda: The Top 10 Things to Clean in the Kitchen with a Box of Baking Soda