Kitchen Knives, Part 2: Which Knife Do You Need?

Don’t forget to enter to win your own Shun Ken Onion chef’s knife, a $250 value.

Next in our learning about cutlery series, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. With such a wide selection of knives on the market, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. Do you have to spend $1000 on a 583-piece butcher block set? Do you really need that cleaver designed specifically for taking down a buffalo? Actually, you don’t. With a few carefully selected pieces, you’ll make short work of 90% of your kitchen tasks – and love doing it.

Which Knife Do You Need?

So, what are the most important knives to know? I’d say you need three: a paring knife, a serrated bread knife, and a chef’s knife.

Paring Knives

Let’s start small: measuring in at between two and four inches long, paring knives are short blades with a pointy tip. Despite their dinky size, these versatile pieces of cutlery are an integral part of your cooking arsenal. Paring knives are great tools for scoring, peeling, boning (get yer mind out of the gutter, you pervs), and anything else you that requires a small point with maximum control. Navigating small areas is something you’ll do frequently as a home chef, and the paring knife is made with these tasks in mind.

Serrated Bread Knives

Serrated bread knives are great for cutting anything that’s crusty on the outside and delicate on the inside. Think baguettes, bagels, and pineapples: you want something hard core enough to get through the tougher outer part while not obliterating the lovely fleshy bits. Serrated knives also make quick work of tomatoes and citrus, easily slicing through their teflon-like skin.

Chef’s Knives

A chef’s knife is your all-around workhorse. They’re made to do almost anything, excelling at chopping vegetables, slicing winter squash and cutting through chicken bones. A solid chef’s knife will should be heavy, but not to the point that you’ll get fatigued using it for a long period of time – as such, it’s super important to try them out at the store before selecting a model!

Chef’s knives can come in all sorts of sizes – 7″ to 10″ are the most popular – and their weights can range all over the map as well. Solid Wustoffs are serious, hefty blades, while Globals are lighter and easier to wield. Which you use depends completely on your height, the shape of your hand, your upper body strength, etc.

We’ll go more into selecting a specific model later. But for now, do you have a favorite knife? Which is it, and what do you use it for most?

You might check out these posts from other food bloggers:

• Choosing a Knife: Metals and Materials (wasabimon)
• Reasons for Buying a Quality Chef’s Knife (christies-corner)
• Choosing a Chef’s Knife (chilicheesefries)