It is easy to remove smells from a plastic cutting board, but a wooden cutting board is an entirely different situation. You need to be careful with how you clean a wooden cutting board because you don’t want to damage the wood at all with any harsh chemicals or cleaners. That said, if your wooden cutting board smells awful, you still want to do something about it so you don’t have to toss it out.
Fortunately, the secret to cleaning and removing a awful smells from a wooden cutting board is pretty easy. There are two different methods you can try, depending on how severe the smell is.
The first method is to slice of lemon or a lime in half. Then take these cut pieces and rub it all over the cutting board, pressing down on the lemon or lime as you rub to really get the citrus into your cutting board. Then rinse it well with cold water. If it’s still smell the bed, you can repeat the process the other half of the lemon or lime.
If it is a really strong odour, you may have to go that much stronger ammonia and baking soda route instead. What you want to do is make a paste of ammonia and baking soda. Wear gloves, and a dish cloth and scrub down your entire cutting board. After this, you’re going to rinse it it very well with a mixture of water and white vinegar.
Because wooden cutting boards can be pricey, you may want to save your smellier items that you need to use a cutting board, and have a special plastic when you use instead for those types of food, so you don’t have to deal with trying to get out these odors out from your good wooden cutting board.
