<figure><figcaption>Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

After cooking all week, my kitchen floor accumulates a lot of crumbs and scraps. Here’s just a taste: a few granules of sugar, some desiccated potato peels (flung onto the ground as I overzealously skinned a spud), a single fusilli noodle, coffee grounds, and—the bane of my existence—sticky, diaphanous garlic skin. But with a handy-dandy broom, I can do a quick sweep of the kitchen floor, and the space becomes moderately more presentable. A broom also comes in clutch when I’ve spilled rice all over the floor and am too lazy to break out the vacuum. Yes, it’s true: I hate cleaning. But a good kitchen broom, one that’s swift and sure and true, makes it mostly painless. I tested 10 brooms to find the best ones to spiff up my kitchen—and do it fast.   

The Winners, at a Glance

This simple broom was adept at quickly gathering and sweeping coffee grounds and rice into its accompanying dustpan. The petite broom head was easy to tuck into corners and other hard-to-reach spots. 

A customizable broom—fancy! You can shorten or lengthen the broom handle, making this a great versatile pick. The dustpan also sports a tall handle, so I could gather up debris without bending over. 

I love this set: It swiftly gathered grounds and grains, and the bristles directed them neatly into the dustpan. While not kitchen-related, it was also great at sweeping cat hair off my couch. 

This cute purple mini dustpan and broom might look like a kid's toy, but it was an efficient little set. The tiny broom reached into nooks nicely and gathered up rice grains readily. 

The Tests

• Coffee Grounds Test: I scattered one tablespoon of ground coffee onto my hardwood floors and then used each broom to sweep it up. I counted how many strokes it took to gather all of the grounds, and noted how easy the broom was to hold and move. 
• Rice Test: I scattered a quarter cup of rice on my kitchen floor and swept it up, noting how many strokes it took. 
• Longterm Use Test (Winners Only): I used each of my favorite brooms in my daily sweeping routine to see how they performed in various cleaning situations. 

What We Learned 

Stiffer Bristles Were Better

<figure><figcaption>Stiffer bristles, like on the Casabella broom, were better at corralling debris in one sweep.Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

Brooms with stiffer bristles, like the Casabella and Pine-Sol, caught rice and coffee grounds and swiftly shepherded them into the dustpans. Softer bristles, like on the O-Cedar, made more of a mess. Instead of sweeping efficiently and neatly, they compressed into the floor and flung stuff like a catapult—rice skittered away and coffee particles whizzed across the floor. I had to adjust my stance, sweep some more, and wrangle any stragglers. To avoid making cleaning a more onerous task than it already is, stick with a stiffer-bristled broom—it’ll get the job done faster. That said, a large, super stiff broom, like the Libman 211 Extra Large Precision Angle Broom, wasn’t as adept at getting into corners and struggled to sweep up anything light or flimsy (such as garlic skins). 

Dustpan Shape Was Important 

<figure><figcaption>A good dustpan should have a slim edge that sits flush with the floor.Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

A dustpan is essential when it comes to sweeping; without one, you’re just moving stuff around (like you did when you were told to clean your room as a kid, amirite?). A good dustpan should have a thin lip that sits flush with the floor, and the interior should be concave without ridges or bumps to impede stuff from entering. It should also be easy to hold. 

Some dustpans I tested were truly horrible, like the O-Cedar’s. While it’s designed to be stepped on, you still need to grab the pan to throw away the junk collected. And this oddly shaped dustpan’s uncomfortably bent handle made it awkward. Plus, the dustpan didn’t attach easily to the broom after use. 

…And Broom Size and Shape Was, Too 

<figure><figcaption>The O-Cedar broom was wider than the dustpan, which made sweeping neatly difficult.Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

Why someone would sell a broom whose brush head was larger than the accompanying dustpan is beyond me. It just makes more mess, since with each sweep, the overhanging portion of the broom pushes stuff around the sides of the dustpan. This was the case with the O-Cedar broom, which I disliked more and more as I continued to test it. The dustpan’s opening is 12 inches wide, while the sharply angled broom head is 13.5 inches across, so every time I swept it sent debris around the sides. 

The heavy, angled broom head also ensured that the broom fell over any time I rested it against the wall for a breather. (I did a lot of sweeping, okay!) While this isn’t a big deal, it’s annoying that you can’t lean the broom off to the side when you take a break (and it also makes storage difficult).  

The Best Brooms Were Light and Nimble 

<figure><figcaption>Heavy, bulky brooms like the Rubbermaid seen here were difficult to control and struggled to sweep in tight spaces.Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

If you’re like me, after a few days of cooking there is an inordinately large amount of food bits all over the floor. And, for some reason, they always seem to accumulate in hard-to-reach corners. Go figure! So when it comes time to clean up the mess, a nimble broom that can tuck into nooks is a must. I found brooms with slightly smaller heads, like the Casabella, were the best at this task, as were handheld dustpans and brushes; their petite size let me easily sweep inside small spaces. Bigger, heavier brooms, like the Amazon Basics and Rubbermaid, were difficult to control and bashed into small spots.

That said, larger, heftier brooms do have their uses: The Amazon Basics broom, which is marketed as an outdoor broom, is truly great at sweeping away big messes across a large swath of ground. I could see it being useful to clean dust or leaves off a deck or a porch. But for a home kitchen, it’s overkill. 

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Broom 

<figure><figcaption>Serious Eats / Grace Kelly</figcaption></figure>

A kitchen broom should be versatile, adept at sweeping s