It’s time for you dishwasher people to face a hard truth: Some things just have to be washed by hand. If this is already obvious to you, good for you. However, I’ve encountered far too many people in my life who shove absolutely anything and everything in the dishwasher, willfully ignoring the impact that the heat coils and detergent (dish soap and dish detergent are not the same!) have on their cookware. If you are someone who uses nonstick pans, wood utensils, stainless steel, cast iron, high-end chef’s knives, fine stemware, and wants that stuff to actually last, you gotta get to scrubbing!
Our top picks
- Best dish rack: Joseph Joseph Expandable Dish Rack
- Best dish pad: Dorai Dish Pad
Once you accept this reality, you’ll come to understand why having a dish drying rack next to your sink is a real asset. Having a designated place on the kitchen counter to stack up hand-washed dishes so that they can properly air-dry before going back to their storage spots makes washing dishes by hand much less of a headache. It will make your life easier and help you take better care of your things, plain and simple.
Below you’ll find our reviews of the best dish drying racks. We picked a favorite, but this is a product category with a lot of good options out there, and a lot of what makes a good dish rack depends on your particular needs and space constraints, so we encourage you to check out the other options too.
Best dish rack: Joseph Joseph Expandable Dish Rack
Pros and cons
Pros
- Versatile design
- Can hold a lot for its size
- Easy to clean
Cons
- Has nooks and crannies that might get funky over time
Specs
Size: Closed: 14" x 6.5" x 12.25", Open: 14" x 6.5" x 20.25"
Materials: Stainless steel, plastic
Adjustable: Yes
In sink: No
Features: Removable utensil holder with knife slots, adjustable drain spout, raised cup drying mat
What we love: The Joseph Joseph Expandable Dish Rack is versatile and adaptable to different spaces in a way that no other countertop dish racks are. While no dish rack is perfect, we appreciated this one’s modular design and found that it worked well, even with a wide array of space constraints.
The real standout feature of the Joseph Joseph is its ability to expand and contract, allowing you to adjust the dish rack to a size that suits you. You can orient the drain spout to any side, which gives you some additional flexibility in the ways you fill the rack.
In our test, we were able to fit dishes, utensils, pots, and glassware from a dinner for four without issue, and the rack is sturdy enough to withstand the weight of heavier things, like Dutch ovens.
Rather than having raised parallel ridges for holding dishes, this rack has taller, narrower, rubber-tipped arches that enable dish stacking in two different directions, more akin to the racks inside a dishwasher.
The whole thing comes apart quite easily for cleaning as well—the two main components slide apart, and the metal rack can be removed for a wipe down when needed.
This is a clever space-saving design that would be at home in a variety of kitchen setups, and it can stow more easily than any other caddy-style dish rack we tested.
What we’d leave: As is the case with any dish rack with a drainage spout, there’s potential for it to get a little funky, but the spout is easy enough to remove from the bottom to clean things out. We also wish it had a swivel spout instead of one that snapped into place, just for added flexibility.
Best dish drying pad: Dorai Dish Pad
Pros and cons
Pros
- Highly absorbent
- Space conscious
- Won't get mildewy
Cons
- Fragile
- Somewhat expensive
Specs
Size: 25" x 17" (unfolded), 12.5" x 17" (folded)
Materials: Diatomaceous earth, silicone
What we love: Several of us on staff are big fans of the Dorai Dish Pad, a foldable dish-drying mat made of diatomaceous earth and silicone. It’s a simple and effective design that is a far superior alternative to microfiber mats or plastic drip trays, which get gross, waterlogged, smelly, and require frequent cleaning.
If you aren't familiar, diatomaceous earth is a naturally absorbent stone material made of fossilized microalgae. It’s extremely effective at evaporating moisture and preventing microbial growth, which makes it the perfect material for drying dishes.
The Dorai’s silicone mesh sets it apart from generic stone drying mats by protecting dishes and glassware from the abrasive stone surface.
For anybody who doesn’t have the space for a full dish rack, or simply wants something that is low-maintenance and easy to put away, a foldable stone dish pad is the way to go, and this one is the best you can find.
What we’d leave: While miraculous in many ways, diatomaceous earth does have its drawbacks. It’s fragile and stains easily, and it can accumulate oils over time, which reduces its absorbency. While this can be remedied by a good buff with some sandpaper, it’s definitely worth keeping in mind. With good care, one of these mats can last you for several years or more.
How we tested dish-drying racks
Our first test for these dish racks was to see how well they cleared water by pouring water around the drainage area. We did this several times at different speeds and with different volumes of water to see if we could suss out any flaws or leaky areas. In general, we found that most could clear a heavy flow fine, but lighter drips (which are much more likely from drying dishes) tended to stick around on all of them until they evaporated.
Our second test involved testing capacity and stability by filling each rack with dishes. For our test, we used four large dinner plates, four drinking glasses, four sets of flatware, a 5-quart Dutch oven, and a 10-inch frying pan. Separately, we tested each rack out to see how well they handled bowls, specifically whether the design made it possible to rack them up standing up or if you had to place them down flat, which takes up much more space.
What makes a good drying rack?
Adaptability
We were most interested in a dish rack’s ability to function under a wide variety of space constraints. We liked the idea of a dish rack that could accommodate different spatial needs and could adapt itself to the given moment. Stationary dish racks can take up a lot of counter space, so a collapsible dish rack or one that could otherwise stow away or be easily moved was a strong contender in our eyes.
Easy to clean
Even if you do a good job of hand-drying, a dish rack is still a pretty wet environment, and it can get funky and gross, which is why having one that is easy to clean and disassemble is a huge must. You should expect that a dish rack is something you clean on a fairly regular basis, so the easier it is to do that, the better. We also gave positive marks to anything with rustproof or rust-resistant features.
Versatility
We were less concerned with how much stuff could fit in the dish rack than we were with how many ways things could fit in a dish rack. A design that lends itself to a variety of orientations and can support all kinds of dishes in the same space is better than a dish rack that has a bunch of separate, specifically designated sections for things at the cost of taking up more room.
Other dish racks we tested
This is a favorite dish rack among many review sites, and we liked it too. Just not as much as the Joseph Joseph. It has a sturdy stainless-steel build and a smart design with a simple slide-out drip tray, making it very easy to clean. Our only gripe with it is that you can’t control the direction of the drip tray angles. This means that it has to sit on your countertop at its widest orientation, making this an impractical choice for people short on counter space. When choosing a winner, we wanted to pick something that would provide greater adaptability (people move, kitchen setups change). However, if you have the space to accommodate this rack, it’s a great choice.
As to be expected with a Simple Human product, this dish rack is thoughtfully designed with unique features. It has a rack for hanging stemware and a hydrophilic coating on the basin that spreads water out for faster evaporation. This is the largest dish rack we tested, so if this is what you want, be sure you have plenty of room for it. We would have liked more pegs for supporting dishes upright. Also the drain was a bit difficult to clean compared to other dish racks. If you find yourself hand-washing a lot of wine glasses, this might be your model of choice, though. Overall, this is a high-quality stainless-steel dish rack that is worth it if you have the space.
This was one of the more affordable dish racks we found. It can function on the countertop, suspend over the kitchen sink, or sit inside it. It has a plastic drainage base and a wire metal construction that’s easy to clean, and it could hold all the dishes required in our test. The materials felt a little cheap, though, making us wonder about its longevity. Longer testing is needed for us to potentially rate it higher, but overall, this is a good, versatile choice.
Like the Kitsure, this is a versatile caddy designed to either go in the sink, suspend over it, or, theoretically, sit next to it (although it doesn’t have any base for that). It is pretty affordable and has a modest but workable capacity. Some buyers have complained about the feet rusting, which is worth noting. It would also be great if it came with an optional drain board like the Kitsure. But, alas…
Dish racks we don’t recommend
We appreciated the attempt at making a dish rack that folds up when not in use, but the plastic components were bulky and rigid and had to be forced open. We also found this one tricky to clean due to an abundance of nooks and crannies.
We weren’t crazy about the plastic ridges on this dish rack, which we felt were unnecessarily bulky. The design also felt cramped compared to other models we tested.
The problems with this dish rack are that it lacked sides, which are helpful for providing additional support when piling dishes high, and that the drip tray was not very effective at containing moisture. To use this dish rack, we’d recommend placing a towel underneath it to avoid any messes. It was, at least, one of the easiest dish racks to clean.
We appreciate this as a playful and clever kitchen gadget, but ultimately this dish rack is best used for bottles and small kitchen accessories. It isn’t particularly helpful for dishes and larger pots.
This is another diatomaceous earth drying rack that’s on the smaller side. The pegs and ridges couldn’t really accommodate larger dishes, and it lacked any space for drying utensils, cutting boards, or silverware.