Sanitizing your Cutting Board
In most cases, soap and hot water are sufficient for cleaning your board. You don’t need to disinfect it unless you’re using it to prepare raw meat. But we’d recommend that you use a separate plastic board for meat, poultry, or seafood, and a wood board for everything else.
The USDA does suggest using a dilute solution of chlorine bleach and water to sanitize boards. However, this method dried out and discolored the wood boards in our tests, so we don’t recommend it.
If your board begins to develop a smell, and/or you have cut meats or poultry, WoodMILLer Design recommends a old chefs trick with simple household items. Simply sprinkle Kosher salt on the board; then half a lemon and rub the lemon over the board. The combination will act as a natural disinfectant. After, simply clean the board with a damp cloth and dry.
You may also have read about cleaning your board using distilled white vinegar. It’s not registered as a disinfectant with the Environmental Protection Agency, though, so vinegar will only remove dirt and debris, but it won’t sanitize the surface (that is, kill microorganisms). A vinegar solution can, however, help remove strong odors from your board, as mentioned above.