The best carving boards for serving turkey, ham and more this year

To be prepared for holiday meals like Thanksgiving, you won’t just need the necessary ingredients and food; you’ll also need the proper tools and equipment. For roasting large pieces of meat and poultry as well as sides, you’ll need a roasting pan, casserole dishes and a carving board to help prevent any messes when you’re serving. In fact, carving boards aren’t just great for preventing spills or messes; they also make stabilizing and actually carving your roast easier, since your turkey or bone-in ham won’t slide all over the place.

To find the best carving boards to use this year, I spoke to experts from wooden kitchen utensil brands and researched highly rated options online, including Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table, which, as someone who loves to cook, are two of my favorite places to shop during the holidays.

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Below are highly rated carving boards to use for serving large pieces of meat and poultry. Some have at least a 4-star average from 500+ reviews on Amazon or at least 100 reviews at another retailer.

This set comes with small, medium and large carving boards, all made of 100% bamboo. Each board has grooves on the sides to use as handles, and a small groove around the perimeter to catch any juices or liquids released from meat and poultry. The boards are available in a light bamboo color and a dark carbonized bamboo shade.

This popular carving board from Sur La Table is made of teakwood and has a natural edge-grain design, which gives it a more colorful appearance rather than a solid shade. The board is reversible, and since it’s more than a foot long and wide, it’s suitable for carving large pieces of meat and poultry, like a whole turkey or chicken. It has a groove around the perimeter to catch juices as you carve. People who bought the board say it’s easy to clean with just soap and water.

The Greener Chef carving board is a great size for carving some of your largest roasts during the holidays. It has a groove around the sides to catch juices from meat and poultry, making it easier to pour down the drain or into the trash. It’s made from 100% bamboo and is warp-resistant, according to the brand. People who bought the board say that it’s durable and it doesn’t slide around on tables or countertops.

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This acacia wood carving board has an interesting checkered end-grain pattern that makes it great to keep propped up in the kitchen. It’s available in two sizes and has a groove that runs along the perimeter of the board. It also has small indentations on the sides that act like handles, making transferring roasts easy. To care for the board, the brand recommends seasoning it with mineral oil before the first use and then occasionally thereafter.

This set of wooden boards from Woodenhouse includes small, medium and large boards made from bamboo and teakwood and are BPA-free and biodegradable, according to the brand, which is part of why I recommended the brand in our guide to cleaning wooden kitchen utensils. Each board has grooves to catch juice, and the set comes with a holder that props them all up at the same time. The boards are odor-resistant, according to the brand, and it’s recommended to hand wash only and use oil to keep the wood healthy.

HexClad’s carving board may be the most expensive option on this list, but it’s also the most advanced and has amazing features. It has two grooves to catch juices — one around the perimeter and another around the middle, where the grips are. The middle of the board has a panel of small hexagonal engravings that help stabilize meat and poultry and keep it in place while you’re carving, preventing messes and accidents. Plus, it has a removable stainless steel compartment on the other side (it’s reversible), which catches scrapes and juices, saving you time on cleanup.

Here are some of the factors that I considered when making the list of carving boards above.

• Grooves: These are one of the most important features to look for when shopping for a carving board, because they catch the juice that will inevitably flow out from meat and poultry while you carve. It’s also important to make sure the board has substantially deep grooves so they hold the juice well, according to Liza Haliayeva, who works in research and development at Woodenhouse*. “I always start with the groove, because that’s where cheap boards cut corners,” she says. “A lot of them look fine in photos but are so shallow they overflow before you’ve finished the first leg.” With this in mind, I made sure to include carving boards that all have at least one groove around the perimeter. *Any inclusion of products from Woodenhouse in this article was made independently of Haliayeva, whom we only sought guidance from. We did not ask Haliayeva for product recommendations, though she may still profit from purchases made in this article.
• Handles: Another important feature, handles make maneuvering the board and transferring it around the house much easier and help prevent accidents. While you can technically carry any of the carving boards by putting your hands on the bottom, most of them have an indentation or groove on the side that makes it easy to hold, carry and get a grip on.
• Weight: Additionally, Haliayeva recommends looking for a carving board that is on the heavier side. “A good [board] is heavier than you’d expect, and that weight keeps it from sliding while you carve,” she says. “It’s one of the first things I check on our own boards. If it still slides, put a damp kitchen towel under it.” Since some weights may be easier for some people to carry and handle than others, I included carving boards that are as light as 3 pounds and up to 14 pounds.

Here’s everything you should consider when shopping for a carving board.

Decide on a wood material

When it comes to carving things like meat and poultry, wood or something wood-like (like bamboo is arguably the best option for carving boards, according to Haliayeva. “For carving, I’d pick hardwood. You want wood dense enough to resist deep knife marks, but not so hard that it dulls the blade,” she says. “Maple and walnut have been the standard for a long time, and for good reason.” Haliayeva says bamboo is great for daily prepping, but for carving she prefers wood. Additionally, carving boards made from woods like acacia, teakwood and beechwood (which I included above) make suitable options, too, according to Haliayeva.

Select the best size

Size is important as it relates to carving boards since they have to reasonably fit and support large roasts, like whole turkeys and chicken, prime ribs, pork tenderloins and more, without touching the side or overflowing. That is why you should buy a carving board that leaves room for meat juices to flow easily into the grooves without making a mess. For large roasts, go with large carving boards — the largest options on this list are around 20 by 15 inches in length and width.

Frequently asked questions

Yes and no, according to Haliayeva. “Every carving board is a cutting board, but not

every cutting board is good for carving,” she says. “The difference is the groove.” This feature saves your kitchen from a lot of mess. Plus, some carving boards have panels in the middle with raised grips to further help stabilize what you’re carving, which can prevent things from sliding and causing knife injuries.

At NBC Selected, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and without undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.

• Liza Haliayeva works in research and development at wooden kitchen utensil brand Woodenhouse*.

*Any inclusion of products from Woodenhouse in this article was made independently of Haliayeva, who we only sought guidance from. We did not ask Haliayeva for product recommendations, though she may still profit from purchases made in this article.

I’m a commerce editor at NBC Selected, where I write about home and kitchen appliances. I’ve written about the best stainless steel cookware, how to season a cast-iron skillet, the best way to polish wood furniture and how to clean wooden kitchen utensils. For this story, I considered guidance from an expert and highly rated products on Amazon and other brands.

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