This Cool Ice Cube Tray Is the Best of All Time

Most New York City apartments I’ve seen do not come with ice machines in their freezers. (Sometimes you’re lucky to even get a freezer at all!) So I have spent many hours of my adult life filling, freezing, and emptying ice cube trays — more hours than I’d care to add up, actually.

I’ve learned a lot along the years. I’ve learned that flimsier trays are best because they’re easier to twist and get the ice out. But a too-flimsy tray will crack within a week. I’ve learned to keep a lid-less storage container in the freezer to use as an ice bin so that I can keep a constant supply of ice on hand. And I’ve learned that OXO makes my favorite ice cube tray.

Buy: OXO No-Spill Ice Cube Tray, $10 at Crate & Barrel

The white tray is bendy enough to make it easy to get the ice out, but I don’t have to worry about it breaking. It makes ice cubes that are perfectly sized for the glasses I have. And it has one super-cool feature that other ice trays don’t: a silicone lid.

Who cares about a lid? I do! Because my freezer is full of stuff and I don’t always have room to lay trays perfectly flat while they freeze. If you fill this tray with water and press the lid on top (do it over the sink because extra water will spill out), the surface tension holds the lid in place. Then, the tray can get shoved into the freezer at an angle (up to 45 degrees!) without leaking. Once the ice is frozen, I peel off the lid, dump the ice out into my container and repeat.

I was hooked the first time I used it. And I’m happy to say I’m still hooked after lots and lots of uses. (My husband and I go through a shocking amount of ice. Mostly because I refuse to drink room-temperature water and even refrigerated water isn’t cold enough to my liking.) All that’s to say that the title of this post is not hyperbole. This ice tray is the best thing to happen to my freezer.

What do you use to make ice? Do you love your tray as much as I love mine?