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Whether you don’t own a dishwasher and need to clean all of your dishes by hand or you prefer to hand-wash certain items, finding a quality dish rack is essential. It should be durable, organized, and stylish. To help you sort through the different options, the This Old House Reviews Team researched the best dish racks on Amazon. Here are our top five recommendations.
Best Over-the-Sink: Surpahs Over-the-Sink Drying Rack
This dish rack is an all-around space-saver. When you’re using it, it hangs over your sink instead of sitting on your counter. When your dishes are dry, it rolls up to fit in a cabinet or drawer until you need it again.
Key Features
- Measures 20.5 by 13.1 inches
- Fits over your sink
- Made from stainless steel and silicone
What Customers Are Saying
Customers liked this rack’s unique, convenient design. They also said that it was durable and space-saving. However, unsatisfied customers claimed that it broke after minimal use. Others were disappointed when it didn’t fit properly over their sink model.
Best For Glasses: simplehuman Kitchen Dish-Drying Rack
This dish rack is large enough to fit all of the dishes you used to cook and eat a meal with your family. It also has several worthwhile additions that help it stand out from the competition. It features a wine glass holder for up to six wine glasses, side hooks for four more drinking glasses or coffee mugs, and a three-compartment utensil holder for forks, knives, and spoons.
Key Features
- Measures 22.3 by 13.4 inches
- Fits on your counter
- Made from stainless steel and plastic
- Has a drip tray, pour spout, wine glass holder, cutlery holder, and drinking glass hooks
What Customers Are Saying
Those who gave this dish rack positive reviews said that it had a large storage capacity, looked stylish, and was easy to set up. However, disappointed customers said that the rack started to rust soon after their purchase.
Best Drainage: Chef’n DishGarden Dish Rack
This dish rack takes up minimal counter space, though it even fits in your sink. It has a round frame that’s made from white plastic with two green removable utensil cups. At the bottom is a green silicone spout that opens when you’re draining water from the drying dishes and closes when you’re not.
Key Features
- Measures 13.25 by 13.25 inches
- Fits on your counter
- Made from silicone and plastic
- Has a pour spout and utensil holders
What Customers Are Saying
Users praised this rack for being made from durable materials, fitting in small kitchens, and stacking multiple dishes on top of each other. Disappointed customers said that its spikes made it difficult to clean. They also said that it leaked water on their counter.
Best For Cutlery: KitchenAid Full-Size Dish Rack
If you have a large kitchen and do a lot of dishes, this dish rack is a solid choice for drying multiple pots and pans at once. It has a large 20-by-15-inch frame with a seven-inch width. It features seven hooks for drinking glasses as well as three removable compartments for utensils. You can detach all three compartments at once or just the two end ones to carry your silverware to its drawer.
Key Features
- Measures 20 by 14.96 inches
- Fits on your counter
- Made from stainless steel and plastic
- Has a drip tray, pour spout, cutlery holder, and drinking glass hooks
What Customers Are Saying
Customers liked this dish rack’s easy assembly, large capacity, and removable water collection tray. However, unhappy customers had issues with the metal wires rusting or corroding prematurely.
Best Foldable: OXO Good Grips Folding Dish Rack
This drying rack has foldable side walls that make it compact and easy to store when it’s not in use. When you need to dry dishes, it has a lot to offer with enough space for 12 plates plus bowls, utensils, and cookware. It also has pieces on either side for storing chef’s knives, cutlery, cups, and other smaller accessories.
Key Features
- Measures 19.8 by 17.1 inches
- Fits on your counter
- Made from stainless steel and plastic
- Has a drip tray, pour spout, accessory holder, cutlery holder, and drinking glass hooks
What Customers Are Saying
Positive reviews mentioned this rack being versatile and attractive. Users also liked how much counter space it saved them when it was folded. However, negative reviews said that its build wasn’t durable enough and its utensil compartments weren’t large enough.
Buyer’s Guide
Below, we’ve outlined several factors to keep in mind as you choose a dish rack for your kitchen.
Size
The size of your dish rack should depend on the amount of counter space you have. If you have a small kitchen, go with a smaller dish rack, even if that means you can’t do all of your dishes at once. You should also be aware of what types of dishes you will most frequently use the drying rack for. For example, if you never use pots and pans, a smaller dish rack should be sufficient for plates, bowls, cups, and utensils. However, if you cook frequently, you may want a larger dish rack that can dry dishes, pots, and pans at the same time.
Material
To ensure durability, dish racks are often made from rust-resistant stainless steel or aluminum. Some dish racks are made from wood or plastic. Wood eliminates the possibility of corrosion, but it’s prone to warping, splintering, and cracking. Plastic dish racks are lightweight, but they won’t last as long as wood or metal ones, especially if they’re frequently loaded with a lot of dishes.
Placement
Most dish racks have a frame that sits over a mat or tray on your counter to collect pooling water. You can also further protect your counter by placing this type of dish rack on a dish towel or rag. Over-the-sink dish racks don’t take up counter space, but they do obstruct you from using a portion of your sink. Foldable or rollable racks are easy to store between uses, but they typically come in a smaller size.
Features
Dish racks usually have compartments to keep your drying dishes organized. These compartments can include:
- Wine glass holders
- Drinking glass hooks
- Knife blocks
- Utensil cups
- Miscellaneous accessory trays
How To Clean Dishes
Not every home has a dishwasher. Maybe you live in an apartment without one, can’t fit it into your budget, or are in the process of deciding on the best dishwasher for your family. Whatever the reason, washing your dishes by hand can be a tedious process, especially after a big meal when the sink is full. Thankfully, we’re here to help. Here are some easy tips for how to make washing your dishes easier.
Put On a Playlist or Podcast
Occupying your mind with something else can make washing your dishes go by faster. It may even make you look forward to it. Make a cleaning playlist to listen to like the one you have for the gym, or find a podcast or audiobook you’ve been waiting to binge.
Rinse Off Residue
By scraping or rinsing off some residue as you put your dishes in the sink, you prevent food from drying on them. This makes it easier to wash your dishes when you come back later.
Get a Good Sponge
Sponges can get nasty quickly. Using a fresh sponge with one absorbent side and one scrubbing side can make the dishwashing experience faster and easier.
Soak Dishes
You may just want to get the dishes over with once you get started on them, but waiting a few minutes for the dishes to soak in a sink that’s filled with dish soap and water can make residue come off a lot easier. This limits the amount of scrubbing you have to do.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you clean a dish-drying rack?
Like anything else in your kitchen, dish racks require some maintenance to last as long as possible. Some parts of a dish rack, such as the utensil holders, may be dishwasher-safe. For the other parts, you can wipe them with a sponge soaked in warm, soapy water and scrub them with a small brush.
Where should you put a kitchen dish rack?
When you’re using it, your dish rack should be next to your sink to help you reach it when your dishes are clean and ready to dry. If you want to move your dish rack off of your counter when it’s not in use, try putting it under the sink, in the pantry, or on the refrigerator.
How long do dish racks last?
The longevity of a dish rack depends on how often you use it, what material it’s made from, and how much care you put into maintaining it. Metal dish racks that are routinely cleaned can last years.
Why Trust The This Old House Reviews Team
This Old House has empowered homeowners for more than four decades with top-notch home improvement content in the form of television programs, print media, and digital content on its website and social media platforms. The This Old House Reviews Team focuses on creating in-depth product and service review content to help inform your purchasing decision for just about any item or resource that you might need for your home. The This Old House Reviews Team has written over 1,000 reviews on products in the home space, from cordless drills to kitchen trash cans, lawn mowers, and dining room decorations.
We recommend products in each review using an intensive research process, spending hours combing through the best available models on Amazon. For a product to make our list of top picks, it must hold a solid sales record on Amazon, have consistently positive customer reviews, and offer unique features, among other factors. After narrowing down our list of recommendations, we conduct additional research and sometimes in-person testing to ensure that the products meet our standards. Once we conclude the research phase, we craft a well-rounded, user-friendly article that includes our recommended products and additional information to help homeowners like you make the right purchase.
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