10 Best Stainless Steel Ice Cube Trays: Expert Picks for Quality & Durability

Customer Review: “Perfect for large ice cubes. Just make sure you let it rest a minute or two on the counter when you take it out of the freezer and before you attempt to lift the handle to release the cubes.”

Customer Review: “Great set for big ole ice cubes and beyond.I use it specifically for my fru-fru iced coffee drinks, freezing leftover coffee and espresso to use for the next day. Everyone knows how greasy and gross coffee gets and my spouse will leave me if I ruin another set of ice trays.The components look and feel heavy-duty and the stainless steel construction makes fast work of freezing. The lever really takes to being manhandled, which I certainly appreciate as an Amazonian brute lady with meaty dad hands.I’ve run it through the dishwasher without issues and otherwise cleans up great.Sleek, sturdy functionality at a great price.”

Customer Review: “This is an excellent alternative to plastic and silicone and refrigerator generated ice. I purchased this ice tray so I can use reverse osmosis water to make ice. The quality is excellent, but a tad pricey. However, I can tell that this ice tray will hold up for a long time. It was worth the purchase in my opinion. The down side is, it can be a little challenging to get all the ice cubes without a little extra elbow grease. If you are on the weaker side, I do not recommend. I would definitely purchase again.”

Customer Review: “A blast to the past that I just love! So sick of plastic ice trays that break and are hard to remove the ice. This is something I remember as a kid and went in search of them. They are perfect. Easy to remove the ice, the little ice trace stand is a great bonus making storing in the freezer very easy. Great quality and makes nice big ice cubes. So easy to use. You won’t regret this purchase.”

Customer Review: “Have only used a few times so far, but the release lever was silky smooth, better even that the metal trays of 60 years ago! I fill the tray 7/8 full, and when it’s frozen, then either let it sit out a few seconds, or quickly run water over the tray and shake off the drops. It releases WHOLE cubes, though I wouldn’t mind if there were cracked ice slivers, too.Plastic trays are awful and most break quickly. Silicon trays, even with filtered water, caused tiny bits of whitish material in the ice. Yuck–would never risk silicon again! My kitchen appliances aren’t fancy or pricey, but this tray made good sense.”

Customer Review: “These trays are pricey but I’ve been trying to eliminate plastic and they’re the best quality metal ones I could find. They work great, make ice taste better, and work great. The only trick is to leave them sitting out for a couple minutes before throwing the lever so that the cubes pop free instead of being crushed. They freeze faster than the plastic ones do too, so that’s an extra benefit. I do wish they were a touch deeper but that might keep them from fitting in some applications so I understand why they did it.”

Customer Review: “This is an excellent alternative to plastic and silicone and refrigerator generated ice. I purchased this ice tray so I can use reverse osmosis water to make ice. The quality is excellent, but a tad pricey. However, I can tell that this ice tray will hold up for a long time. It was worth the purchase in my opinion. The down side is, it can be a little challenging to get all the ice cubes without a little extra elbow grease. If you are on the weaker side, I do not recommend. I would definitely purchase again.”

Customer Review: “A blast to the past that I just love! So sick of plastic ice trays that break and are hard to remove the ice. This is something I remember as a kid and went in search of them. They are perfect. Easy to remove the ice, the little ice trace stand is a great bonus making storing in the freezer very easy. Great quality and makes nice big ice cubes. So easy to use. You won’t regret this purchase.”

Customer Review: “I’ve been wasting money on the plastic ice cube trays which crack and fall apart. Also I am slowly ridding my kitchen of plastic. This tray is excellent, easy to pull up the handle when the ice is frozen and easily take out the cubes and store in the freezer. I have an automatic ice maker but I like to freeze fruit juices and citrus juice also. I was so happy to see that it is quality metal and easy to use. I highly recommend this brand for quality.”

Customer Review: “I was very surprised when I found these on Amazon. Best ice trays ever made. Never break in less you abuse it. Makes quality ice cubes pretty quickly I might add. I love this product I’m so glad I found it”

Customer Review: “This is the best item I have purchased for large ice cubes. So easy to use, and no smell from those silicone ice trays.”

Customer Review: “Well, it works, and with little hassle getting the cubes to separate from the tray or mechanism, which was my biggest concern since the design is not very robust at all. It makes 6 large cubes. About the same amount of total ice as a normal ice tray. They are perfect for mixed drinks. One cube has lasted through a couple drinks…If you did have to use force to remove the cubes, I feel the construction design and material choice would work against you. For $25, they could have used 316 stainless steel instead of 18/8. In fact, I’d have paid more for that. The way they chose to attach the mechanism’s handle to the cube separators is an obvious point of failure. Even with the ease of use, I do expect it to eventually fail.I gave it four stars because it does exactly what I wanted, which is to say make large ice cubes free of silicon smell and it does it with a very easy mechanism to remove the cubes, the easiest ice tray I’ve ever used by far. I removed one star simply because it could have been a more robust design. Had they used 316 stainless steel and used a stronger rivet at the handle, this thing would last a lifetime.”

Customer Review: “Built-in ice-making has made ice a fast, easy & expected commodity in the world of consumer refrigeration, but as is often the case, what is easy and fast is not always good – in fact, that’s understating it, how many times has fast and easy landed you in purgatory? Be honest, that ice tumbling through your fridge door innards often emerges tasting not unlike thrice refrozen fish with just an ever so slight hint of tubing mold. In some fridges it gets so bad the ice can ruin a drink in seconds. On-board/in-board filtration seemed a welcome fix until we all experienced the dominance of food vapor as ice flavor – even in the best freezers there always seems to be that one little dish that ruins it for the rest of us.As a water and ice geek, I’m always on the lookout for better water and better ice. I’m currently settled on filtered alkaline water as my water. IT’S MINE. Wonderful. Detoxxing. The liquid equivalent of angelic seraphim from the inner dimensions of heaven itself, best drunk from a 16 oz Williams Sonoma Picardie Tumbler (first double-rinsed to remove dishwasher film at the molecular level). Yes, it’s geekdom gone mad and heaven too – right up to the point where you attempt to make the water in that glass: cold. Then you are thrown shocking, gasping, sputtering back, BACK to the dark ice ages!My first attempt at perfect ice water? Whiskey cubes! They’re stainless, they’re hip, they make you look dang cool! But…to keep my water lukewarm 24×7 I’d have to fill my freezer with approximately 764 metal cubes. What if an alien needed those cubes to reconstitute his spaceship and return to his home planet? Who am I to deny the little boy with the recently deceased mother from reconciling with his father by allowing my kitchen to be destroyed by 764 metal cubes flying every which way? Heck, the dang things never made the water cold anyway – at least not ICE COLD. I don’t know who put the whiskey drinkers and alien movie makers in cahoots but they can’t have my freezer space – I’ve got too much thrice refrozen fish in there!So I moved on to plastic trays. Cheap, quick, easy! (we’ve been here before.) Unfortunately ionized alkaline water is AGGRESSIVE. It’s MOLECULARLY UNSTABLE. It’s looking to BIND with something okay? Which is what makes it such a great detoxxer of the human body. Unfortunately it also tears plastic a new one (yes I said it). And soon enough, my glistening tumblers were filled with plastic-flavored water. Into the trash with $16.17 of cheap, quick, easy plastic ice trays and back to square one.Ideally the only thing that contains ionized, alkaline water is GLASS. And even then, regular cleaning with Apple Cider vinegar is required to occasionally remove scale build-up (the by-product of ionized water stabilizing itself over time). But GLASS doesn’t work with ice – glass shatters when ice expands. So I dropped back to the next best material: Stainless Steel.I’ve had four of these ecozoi trays in service for about a month. Yes, I do get scale build-up on the stainless as well, but a quick Apple Cider vinegar soak cleans that right up. It’s likely a good way to clean these trays even if you’re just drinking plain filtered water. Just soak’em for about 30 minutes and they’ll come out smooth and silky and oh-so-shiny!Some tips: Only fill these trays three-quarters full, otherwise it’s too hard to get the ice out. Wait at least ten minutes after taking these trays out of the freezer before attempting to ‘pop’ the ice out. When settling the handle back into place after filling – gentle, loving rocking motions are your friend (ahem) – don’t force anything – the more out of whack you get the separaters the less likely it is you’ll get the handle all the way down – so don’t bend anything! Once you’ve got the handle all the way down, it’s easy enough to stack these directly on one another – though it takes more care to do so than with plastic trays. (Yes, I have dumped water down my shirt during failed freezer loading attempts but it’s all part of the ballet of perfection – ice ballerinas aren’t made in a day okay?As for the strange wire thingees that come with this set? I was never able to get the ice trays to set on them levelly or stably – so I tossed them (in some future timeline Wall-E has probably got his little compactor door jammed on a now rusting, mangled version of these things – sorry Wall-E my lack of recycling acumen has become your fate!)Finally: ice storage. I took a stainless steel bowl, tossed it in the freezer and that seems to do the trick. It’s a little Shrekish, but I use my knife sharpener as a bludgeon, as the melty ice from my cracking sessions does often stick together on refreezing and that sharpener has just the right weight, pitch, yaw and attitude to separate it all back into relatively proper cubes.Warning: these trays represent a lifestyle change, if you are currently lazing in the fast lane of bad fridge ice, these trays will seem like a foray into third world living (can I say that? Ah well, too late!) – heck, let’s just lay it out here: these things turn you into an Ice Farmer okay? But for me, ionized alkaline water, combined with ionized, alkaline ice made using these stainless trays has created the best ice water drinking experience thus far in my life, and for me that makes all the effort worth it!Cheers cherubs!”

Customer Review: “I’ve had these trays for several months now and I love them. The ice cubes are the perfect size, the lids keep freezer debris off the ice, the steel freezes water quickly and there’s no sign of wear or rusting. With that said, I do have two complaints– but they’re easily fixable.1. The usage recommendation. Filling the lid with water and waiting for the cubes to loosen makes a huge mess and isn’t always successful. The water either cools too fast or is too hot and melts the ice.Solution: Instead of taking the lid off just leave it on, flip the tray upsidedown and run lukewarm water across the bottom. Then, you can just press on the bottom of the cubes and they’ll pop right out.2. The lid. It’s a pain to open because the outer lip prevents your fingers from getting a good grip.Solution: Look up “silicone glass cover” on Amazon. I bought the flower shaped ones with a little handle on top, they’re only like $6 and they solve the lid issue perfectly. After running the tray under water, the silicone suctions to the lid and it comes right off without any mess or hassel.Even with these two complaints, I still think they’re worth 5 stars. Every other ice cube tray is either plastic or aluminum with a flimsy handle and these are sturdy and plastic-free.”

Customer Review: “Very sturdy, easy ice retrieval. Love the larger cubes.”

Customer Review: “the tray works great. All ice cubes come out easily. I keep making and save them in a ziplock.It makes nice big cubes that last.”

Customer Review: “The silicone ice trays don’t compare. These classics came with a new refrigerator back in the day. These stainless steel trays seem to work better. Our automatic ice maker is on the blink—we got tired of messing with the flimsy silicone trays. These are easier to stack and remove the ice.”

Customer Review: “I like to make my ice in a metal tray instead of I’m plastic. Works great.”

Customer Review: “Saw this and had to have them. Grew up with the same trays many years ago. I love them!”

Customer Review: “This wrack is side loading, I didn’t notice it when I ordered it. Also, I cut myself everytime I try to remove the cubes, they fall apart. Which is ok if you like crushed ice, I do not. I have to take the point of my knift sharpener to get the cubes out. I wouldn’t recommend this ice try.”