This Innovative Dish Rack Makes Doing Dishes Less of a Chore

As an apartment dweller without a dishwasher, I’ve hand-washed a lot of dishes over the years. 

While I’ve gotten used to it, the bane of my dishwashing existence is the stinky soap-scum stain that forms on my laminate countertop where I leave the dishes to dry. 

I’ve tried a variety of dish-drying setups—moisture-absorbing pads, rubber bar mats, wire racks—to no avail. The scummy spot inevitably returns with the next round of dishes. Plus, these other drying doodads always end up caked with decomposing food and mold, and they're difficult to clean. (If you’ve ever tried to clean a bar mat, you know how hard it is.)

But when I started working at America’s Test Kitchen, it dawned on me that my colleagues probably had a solution to my woes. I dug in (rather maniacally) to their dish drying rack review and ordered the giant version of their top dish rack: the simplehuman Steel Frame Dishrack.

The Hummer of dish racks, this behemoth is decked out with multiple utensil compartments, a special area for mugs, and even a gleaming metal ledge to hang delicate stemware out to dry. Plus, the various sections are removable, making it supereasy to clean. 

The best part, though, is the elevated basin, which has a tapered bottom that captures soapy water and sends it out a chute that you can aim into your sink. No more moldering dish pad. 

No more food-clogged bar mat. No more scrubbing my countertop to rid it of that stinky old dishwater smell and layer of green soap scum. This dish rack has changed my life for the better, and washing and drying dishes will never be the same. 

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