Cooking is one of those unavoidable daily tasks that can quietly eat into your free time. While putting together a proper meal can be satisfying, there are plenty of days when it just feels like another job to get through.
Getting quicker in the kitchen usually comes down to practice and having the right kit, but even then, many home cooks don’t use their tools to their full potential — including something as basic as a chopping board.
Most people own at least one and use it constantly, whether that’s dicing vegetables or grating cheese. And although the wood-versus-plastic argument never seems to end, there’s another detail many shoppers overlook: that little hole in the corner or at the handle end often has a practical purpose beyond storage.
There are loads of simple chopping-board tricks people swear by. In professional kitchens, one of the most common is placing a damp cloth or paper towel underneath to stop the board sliding as you cut. But the hole can also help with a problem nearly everyone runs into during prep and cooking.
At first, it’s easy to assume the opening is only there so you can hang the board up after washing it. In reality, it can double as a neat way to transfer food without sending chopped bits scattering over the counter — or, worse, onto the floor.
If you’ve ever tried sliding chopped onion, herbs, or grated cheese straight off the board edge, you’ll know how often a chunk escapes at the last second. On many boards, you can guide the ingredients toward the hole instead and push them through into a pot or bowl waiting underneath.
That approach keeps everything contained and can make moving ingredients from board to pan feel much more controlled. Chef Lora McLaughlin Peterson highlighted the trick on her @lorafied TikTok channel.
She asked in her video: “How many times have you chopped up something only for it [to] land on the counter or worse, the floor, when you’re trying to put it in your bowl, the sink, or compost?”
As she demonstrated feeding ingredients through the opening into a cooking pot, Peterson said: “Not only is this handy, it’s actually kind of fun.”
Then, while pushing even more produce through the hole, she added: “How great is that? And a slam dunk every time.”
The hole trick isn’t the only chopping-board tip worth knowing, either. Alongside the damp-paper-towel method for stability, there’s also an easy way to refresh a board that’s picked up stains and lingering smells.
Cover the surface with coarse salt, then grab half a used lemon and scrub it across the salted board. Once you’ve worked over the whole area, let it sit for around five minutes, scrape away the residue, and rinse clean.
The rough salt acts like a budget-friendly abrasive to lift stuck-on grime, while the lemon’s citric acid helps cut through grease, freshens odours, and offers mild antibacterial benefits.