Freezer Week

The $4 Find That Has Majorly Improved My Freezer’s Ice Situation

published Aug 12, 2020
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Putting ice tray into the freezer
Credit: Sarah Crowley

If, like me, you’ve never owned a fridge/freezer with a built-in ice maker, then you know how exhilarating living with ice trays can be. Will they fall from their precarious perch on top of the frozen peas? Will there even be enough ice cubes in the trays for your iced coffee or cocktails? Will the ice actually crack and come out of the tray? WHAT FUN! Actually, no. Owning ice trays and storing them in freezer is annoying, cumbersome, and decidedly not fun.

About a year ago, though, I snagged a $4 plastic ice bucket that changed all of that for me. And so I’m here to tell everyone who lives without an ice maker: A narrow, rectangular ice bin is going to solve many of your ice tray woes. Here’s why I love mine so much, plus where you can get your own.

Credit: Sarah Crowley

An Ice Cube Bin Will Solve Many of Your Ice Tray Woes

When I impulse bought this Made By Design Ice Cube Bin from Target last year, I had low expectations. I thought maybe this $4 bucket would help me keep more ice on hand and if it didn’t I could easily use it somewhere else to corral my kids’ toys. What I didn’t foresee is how seamlessly it would tuck into a freezer shelf, even creating a sturdy barrier between my frozen soups and frozen vegetables. Or that its one-quart capacity would hold four trays’ worth of ice at once — a cocktail- and iced coffee-lover’s dream. My favorite part, though, is that my ice tray sits perfect inside the bucket, giving it a perfectly level (and secure) place to freeze and keeping the previously made ice nice and fresh while acting as a lid.

An ice cube bin means we always have ice on hand. No more waiting for a tray to freeze. We make one tray, dump it, and repeat. When the bin gets dirty, it gets a simple rinse and wipe out (this particular bin isn’t dishwasher-safe) and returned to the freezer. It has help up surprisingly well for such an inexpensive find — and I live with two rowdy kids and two other grown-ups.

Do you have a life-changing freezer find? Tell us about it in the comments!