7 Great Uses of Ice Cube Trays Around the House

We don’t often think about it, but ice cube trays are some of the most useful tools in our kitchen. I rarely use them for their intended purpose — making ice. Instead, I rely on them all the time to create components for quick meals and to avoid wasting food. Here are some great uses for your ice cubes trays, aside from making ice. Here are some things to try.

1. Divide a drawer

If your junk drawer is an unsightly mess, insert a plastic ice cube tray for easy, low-cost organization. One ‘cube’ can hold paper clips; the next, rubber bands; another, stamps. It’s another small way to bring order to your life.

2. Organize your workbench

If you’re looking through your toolbox for that perfect-sized fastener that you know you have somewhere, here’s the answer to your problem. An ice cube tray can help you organize and store small parts you may need at one time or another, such as screws, nails, bolts, and other diminutive hardware.

3. Keep parts in sequence

You’re disassembling your latest gadget that has lots of small parts and worry that you’ll never be able to get them back together again in the correct sequence. Use an old plastic ice cube tray to help keep the small parts in the right order until you get around to reassembling it. If you really want to be organized, mark the sequence by putting a number on a piece of masking tape in each compartment. The bottom half of an egg carton will also do the trick.

4. A painter’s palette

Your child, a budding picasso, requires a palette to mix colors. A plastic ice cube tray provides a perfect sturdy container for holding and mixing small amounts of paints and watercolors.

5. Freeze extra eggs

Are you overstocked on bargain-priced eggs? Freeze them for future baking projects. Medium eggs are just the right size to freeze in plastic ice cube trays with one egg in each cell and no spillover. After they freeze, pop them out into a resealable plastic bag. Defrost as many as you need when the time comes.

6. Freeze foods in handy cubes

An ice cube tray is a great way to freeze small amounts of many different kinds of food for later use. The idea is to freeze the food in the tray’s cells, pop out the frozen cubes and put them in a labelled ziplock plastic bag for future use. Here are a few ideas to start off: if you’ve grown plenty of basil, but your family can’t eat pesto as quickly as you’re making it, make a big batch of pesto (without the cheese) and freeze it in ice cube trays. Later, when you’re ready to enjoy summer’s bounty in the middle of winter, defrost the pesto ice cubes, add cheese, and toss with pasta.

7. There’s only so much sweet potato your growing baby will eat at one sitting. Freeze the rest of it in trays for a future high chair meal.