How to Clean Wooden Cutting Board

Salt on the wooden board — Then sprinkle the wooden board with salt about once a week and let it stand overnight or for several hours.

Author:
Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger.
Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.

How to clean wooden cutting board? Again and again friends and acquaintances ask me how we cooks clean wooden chopping boards. To make sure that this will work safely in your kitchen in the future, I have put together the following instructions.

First of all I will briefly explain the advantages of natural cutting boards. Have fun reading and looking after the boards!

Lemon freshly sliced close-up — Wooden chopping boards delight the eye, here a lemon sliced on a board.

1. Why are wooden cutting boards a good choice in the kitchen?

First things first: wooden cutting boards have been used in the kitchen for a long, long time. Only in the last two decades have traditional wooden boards been banned from professional kitchens.

Instead of the “natural wooden chopping boards”, plastic boards in various colours to match the material to be cut have become established. These plastic cutting boards can be thermally disinfected in the dishwasher or cleaned with the steam jet.

This is the reason why cooks today, mostly with plastic cutting boards, at least in gastronomy, have to make do.

Despite the many rules around hygiene, we often notice discoloured and unattractive modern plastic cutting boards in the kitchens, which we neither like nor find beautiful.

At home you can use wooden boards without any problems, if you follow the following cleaning and care instructions.

Wooden chopping boards are the first choice, with proper care there is no better cutting board!
Chef Thomas Sixt recommends

2. Clean the wooden cutting board step by step, the instructions from the professional chef

Clean the wooden cutting board with a brush — After use, you should always clean your board quickly with a brush, water and washing-up liquid and then rinse it clearly. The board should be wiped dry with a cloth, moisture does not get into the wood! For drying, either stand it up or lay it flat with a pad. The board needs air!

Kitchen wood cutting boards you get hygienically clean with salt!
Chef Thomas Sixt recommends

Knock the salt off the board — The salt draws the remaining moisture from the board and kills the germs. This has been done for many hundreds of years, the board is practically “germ-free” after treatment with salt. The picture shows the typical salt residues in particularly humid places. You can now tap the salt off.

For cleaning the wooden cutting boards there is only the method with salt. I learned this from the chef Helmut – he didn’t want to have his well-kept wooden boards removed from the school kitchen. Maybe wooden boards and the teaching of cleanliness would be better than plastic boards in the kitchen!
Says chef Thomas Sixt

Apply oil — You can now rub oil on the wooden board which has been cleaned with salt. I like to use sunflower oil or olive oil. I have never had problems with a “rancid” wooden board!

Oil is absorbed into the wooden board — The wooden board usually absorbs the oil quickly. The board is now prepared for further use!

3. Cutting on wood does the knives good

We cooks prefer to cut on wooden boards, which is easy on the blades of the knives. It is an honest and pleasant feeling.

Onion, parsley, garlic — Professionals like to cut on wood, here I have a bamboo board in use.

There will soon be a separate article on the subject of “Which wooden chopping board would I recommend for your kitchen”. For questions please use the comment function at the bottom of this page! Good luck in your kitchen!