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I will humbly suggest that I have many talents in the kitchen. Moving around with a just-filled ice cube tray is not one of them. It does not matter how slowly I walk or how straight I hold my arms. I inevitably end up sloshing that thing around like a drunk uncle at a beer garden.
The real problem is that I have to fill a lot of ice cube trays. I keep a lot of different sizes and shapes of ice—big ones to put in old-fashioned glasses, long ones to put in high balls, small ones that can melt quickly and cool a glass of water. And for years none of my ice cube trays had lids.
A form-fitting lid is such a small addition, it’s something you might not even register if you’re browsing on Amazon looking for a good ice tray. But it makes a world of difference. First, even if you aren’t quite as shaky as I am walking from the sink to the freezer, a lid guarantees that this is a completely splash-free experience. That means you can fill trays all the way to the top and, for people who care about symmetry, get a more uniform shape for the ice. It also makes it easier to use boiling water in the trays, which can help make your ice a little clearer.
Adding lids to ice cube trays makes them easier and more stable to stack. Now that my trays have lids, I can pile them all up on the side of the freezer. I can also stick anything else I want on top of the pile (cold packs for the kids’ owies or the molds for the KitchenAid shaved ice attachment).
Crucially, lids also help reduce the potential for gross freezer smell and taste to seep into your ice, and by extension, into your drink. Contributor Anna Stockwell recommended keeping ice in airtight containers back in 2016, and while every ice cube tray lid won’t fit so snuggly as to make it completely airtight, it will help cut down on the the potential for your ice to interact with whatever miasma has built up in your freezer over time.
If you want to make your ice storage even more convenient, I recommend a dual tray and container like the Ice Box from W&P. The silicone ice tray stacks on top of a plastic container that holds a few trays’ worth of ice. That means it’s easy to grab ice as needed, without needing to pop new cubes out of the tray every time. The included lid fits on both the tray and the container, so the ice is sealed as it freezes and when it’s stored.
A lid for an ice cube tray is not a seismic shift in frozen water storage and shouldn’t get a blaring headline claiming it’s a “game changer.” But if you have some ratty old plastic ice cube trays, or even some old silicone ones, getting a new set that comes lids will make your life spill-free and just a little bit better.
