I’m walking you through the easiest way to deep clean your cutting boards with safe, easy-to-find ingredients.
Cutting Board Cleaning Solutions
Here’s the deal: cutting boards are dirty. Think about ALL of the things that you cut on a cutting board in just a week’s time. For me, that’s probably some sort of meat (or several kinds of meat), fruit, veggies, etc. And I, personally, do not have separate cutting boards for raw meat and produce — I just make sure that my cutting board is cleaned really well in between each use.
THIS cutting board disinfectant is a 6-step process (don’t worry, 3 of the steps are rinsing your cutting board!) and includes only really simple, clean ingredients.
Ingredients for Homemade Cleaner for Cutting Boards
To clean your cutting boards really thoroughly, you’ll need:
- Bathroom cleaner – to start, you’ll need a bottle of our bathroom cleaner. I know that spraying your cutting board with a bathroom spray may feel weird, but remember that the bathroom cleaner is actually just a heavy-duty non-toxic cleaner, so it really isn’t bathroom specific.
- White vinegar – in addition to the bathroom cleaner, you’ll also want to grab some white vinegar. This will help to further clean the cutting board!
- Lemon – finally, while lemon juice does have some pretty impressive cleaning power, we’re really using it here to help neutralize any smells that may have built up on your cutting board. You’ll need ½ of a lemon.
How to Make Homemade Disinfectant for Cutting Boards
There isn’t a whole lot of “making” to be done here! If you don’t already have a spray bottle of our bathroom cleaner, though, you will want to pull that together. All you’ll need to do that is 1 ½ cups of water and a ¼ cup of Branch Basics Concentrate. I also poured my distilled white vinegar into a spray bottle for easy application, so you may choose to do that also!
Is cutting board cleaner easy to make?
It is! The process is really just a matter of measuring and pouring into spray bottles (the bathroom cleaner + distilled white vinegar) and shouldn’t take you any more than 5 minutes.
Is cleaning a cutting board the same as disinfecting?
Cleaning typically refers to the removal of germs while disinfecting refers to killing those germs. I actually prefer cleaning to disinfecting, because oftentimes, disinfectants are made with harsh chemicals (that I don’t necessarily want in my house). This cutting board method is referred to as a disinfectant because of the disinfecting power of vinegar, though, and that’s totally fine with me — I’m not concerned about the harshness of vinegar!
How to Disinfect a Cutting Board
Here’s exactly how you’ll clean your cutting boards:
- Spray with bathroom cleaner – first, you’ll spray your board with bathroom cleaner. If it needs to be scrubbed at all, go ahead and scrub with a sponge while the bathroom cleaner is on the board.
- Rinse – rinse the bathroom cleaner off with hot running water.
- Spray with vinegar – once the cutting board is rinsed, go ahead and spray it with vinegar.
- Rinse – rinse the vinegar off of the board with hot running water.
- Rub with lemon – halve the lemon and rub the cut side onto the cutting board.
- Rinse – give your cutting board one last rinse with hot running water!
Can this formula be used for cleaning wood cutting boards?
Absolutely! This is wood cutting board-friendly. In fact, that’s the only style of cutting board I use!
Can this formula be used to clean other things?
The bathroom spray is an incredible heavy-duty cleaner, so you can absolutely use that for anything around the house that needs a little bit of extra power.
Can you immediately use a disinfected cutting board?
When you’re using safe ingredients (like Branch Basics Concentrate, vinegar, and lemon) to clean your cutting boards, you can absolutely go straight from cleaning to cutting. That’s one of the fantastic things about keeping your cleaning ingredients safe — no pesky waiting period!
How effectively does the cleaner sanitize a cutting board?
Sanitizing is defined as, “lowering the number of germs to a safe level,” and can be achieved through both cleaning (removing germs) and disinfecting (killing germs). Because this formula does both, you can rest assured that your cutting board will be safely sanitized!
How do you store the cutting board cleaner?
Your spray bottles of bathroom cleaner and vinegar can be stored wherever you typically store cleaning products (I personally store mine in a baby-proofed cabinet under the kitchen sink).
How long will the cleaner last?
Once mixed with water, the Concentrate (your bathroom spray) will last for about a year. The vinegar will last at least that long (check the expiration date on your bottle), and you’ll likely need to grab a new lemon each time you’re planning on cleaning your cutting boards.
If you’re interested in cleaning up more of your cleanup (it’s easy, cost-effective, and actually works, I promise!), use code FEDANDFIT for 15% off of a Branch Basics Starter Kit.
Homemade Disinfectant (Cutting Board)
Ingredients
- Bathroom cleaner to spray
- White vinegar to spray
- 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Spray your board with bathroom cleaner. If it needs to be scrubbed at all, go ahead and scrub with a sponge while the bathroom cleaner is on the board.
- Rinse the bathroom cleaner off with hot running water.
- Spray the cutting board with vinegar.
- Rinse the vinegar off of the board with hot running water.
- Rub the cut side of the lemon onto the cutting board.
- Rinse the cutting board one last time with hot running water!
