8 Best Ice Cube Trays of 2026, Tested and Ranked

The bin is the reason to buy this set. Four lidded trays stack inside a plastic storage box with a scoop, so the routine differs from every other tray here: instead of picking cubes out one at a time, you empty a whole tray into the bin, refill it, and put it back. Within a day you have a box of loose cubes and four trays working on the next batch.

The trays are the push-from-below sort, a soft silicone base in a rigid frame, 14 cubes each and 56 in total, with lids that sit flat enough to stack and to carry a full tray to the freezer. Release is among the smoothest here: a thumb under a cube and it lifts, with no twisting, no warm water and no drama for anyone with sore hands.

Size is the trade-off. The cubes are small, closer to what a fridge dispenser makes than to a bar cube, and in a tall glass or a big insulated cup that is fine. If you want one cube to do the work of three, this isn’t the set. The container is the other thing to watch: the bin itself is rigid and stacks well, but its lid is the thinnest piece in the box, and the tray frames flex more than the trays they hold.

Give it a shelf about a foot wide and it earns the space. The whole thing measures 12 inches by 7.4 and stands only 3 inches tall, so it slides under a shelf or into a drawer. For a household making iced tea by the pitcher, or anyone who wants ice on demand without buying a countertop machine, it is the most useful set here.

Fifteen and a half inches is a lot of tray. It won’t fit across a narrow freezer drawer, and if your shelf is shallow this is the one that hangs over the edge. The length buys something, though: fourteen cubes in a single row under a silicone lid built to seal, so the tray can go in on its side, or wedged at an angle in a full freezer, without leaking water down the shelves.

The handle matters more than it sounds. A full tray of water is awkward to carry, and the molded grip lets you take it from sink to freezer in one hand with the lid on. The cubes are rounded rather than square and release with a push from the base; at 0.75 ounces each they’re small, the sort that suit a glass of water or soda rather than a whiskey tumbler.

One tray for roughly what a four-pack costs is the trade, and it’s worth it in one case: a freezer with no spare flat space. Test the seal before you trust it. Fill it, fit the lid, set it on its side over the sink for a minute and look for seepage. Ours held, but a lid that isn’t sitting flat will weep, and that’s the one thing that turns this tray from clever to annoying.

A 1.3-inch cube is the size a rocks glass is built for, and the glacio trays turn out 21 at a time. Two trays, 42 cubes, each one square enough to look deliberate in a short drink: a couple of cubes and an orange peel rather than a glass packed to the rim. They chill a drink fast, which is what small ice is for; slow melt is a different tray.

The lids are the practical half of the package. Each tray has its own cover, they stack cleanly, and the ice stays away from freezer smells. Filling is fussier than the rest. The instructions ask for about 80 percent, and the tray is opaque enough that you judge that by feel rather than by eye, so overfill it and the lid pushes water out the sides on the way to the freezer.

Release is a press on the base, and the soft silicone lets you take two cubes and leave the rest, which is exactly what you want from a cocktail tray. These sit at the premium end of the group and you’re paying for cube size and looks rather than volume: the four-tray sets here make three times as much ice per freeze for less money. If your drinks are long and iced, spend there instead.

A two-inch cube is what keeps a whiskey from turning watery before you’ve finished it. The FDDBI trays make twelve per freeze, six cavities per tray and two trays, each cube just under two inches square and slow to give up its cold. It is the shape a bar uses for a reason.

We were impressed by how much tray there is for the money. The silicone is wrapped around a firmer core, so a full tray doesn’t fold in half when you lift it, which is the flaw that makes cheap large-cube molds maddening, and the lids sit tight enough to carry a full tray across the kitchen. Cubes push out from the base one cavity at a time, so you can take two and leave the rest freezing.

The limit is the format. Two-inch cubes don’t fit narrow highballs, bottles or most travel mugs, and twelve cubes per freeze won’t keep a pitcher topped up. As a drinks tray it’s excellent; as your only tray it isn’t enough. Where it earns its place is beside a standard tray, doing the job the standard one can’t.

Four lidded trays, 56 cubes and two colors: this is the set for a household that wants covered, stackable trays without paying premium prices. Two blue trays and two green ones, each with its own lid, each holding 14 cubes. It is a lot of covered capacity for the money.

The soft base is what makes them work. Press under a cube and it lifts out, with no twisting, no cracking at the rim and no running the tray under the tap. The lids sit flat enough to stack three or four high, the set is dishwasher safe, and the color split is genuinely useful when one tray holds stock and another holds water.

Where it gives ground is the join between that soft base and the rigid frame. That’s where water can creep through if the frame flexes on the way to the freezer, and where the corners are likeliest to split over a season of use. Carry them flat, don’t wrench a full tray, and they behave. The cubes also run small, which suits tall glasses and bottles better than a whiskey glass.

Two green trays and one blue sounds like packaging until you’re freezing stock in one and water in the other. That’s the useful part of this set: 14 cubes per tray, 42 in total, cubes of 1.2 inches, silicone bottoms set into a rigid frame, and a lid on each tray that sits flat for stacking.

The set is built to a price and it shows in two places. The frames are thin, and the lids are the first thing to give if a tray gets knocked around a crowded drawer. What it does well is the everyday job: fill, lid, stack, then push out two cubes without disturbing the rest. For a first set, a dorm fridge or a camper, that is enough, and at the bottom of the price range it’s a low-risk way to find out whether you get on with silicone trays.

The sliding lid is the whole idea here. Instead of peeling a cover off, you slide it back and take as many cubes as you want, leaving the rest covered and still stackable. On paper it is the best lid design in this group.

In use it’s the part we minded. The lid slides stiffly when it’s cold, and overfill the tray and water gets into the channel and freezes it shut. Fill it shy of the top, let the tray sit for a minute after it comes out of the freezer, and the slide frees up again.

The cubes themselves are good. The rounded shape pushes them up as you press the base, so they release with less force than a square tray, and the trays stack squarely with their lids on. They need to stay level, though, because the cover sits on top rather than sealing, so a tilted tray leaks. The cubes are smaller than a standard tray’s, closer to what the OXO no-spill tray turns out.

Two covered trays that keep odors out and let you take a few cubes at a time is a reasonable thing to want, and this delivers it. The friction is all in the lid, not the ice, which makes it a set for someone who stacks trays neatly and fills them carefully rather than someone grabbing ice one-handed.