If you ask any chef, they will tell you that the most important tools they have are their knives. Good knives make it easier to prepare food properly and make it safer too. As with most tools and gadgets though, well-made knives that will last a lifetime are expensive as you always have to pay for quality. Fortunately, you don’t need a lot of knives to be able to have control over your cooking. Below is a guide to kitchen knives that lists the five most essential knives that you should have in your kitchen.
Chef’s Knife
Your chef’s knife will 9 times out of 10 be your weapon of choice when you head into the kitchen. Chef’s knives are long and broad, which makes them easy to handle and control. Chef’s knives are usually either 6 or 8 inches in length meaning they will always feel comfortable in your hand. This knife is a great all-rounder and if you can only afford to get one quality knife for your kitchen, make sure it is a chef’s knife.
Paring Knife
The paring knife is short and thin and, as such, is much better suited to delicate slicing, cutting, and trimming jobs. If you don’t have a dedicated peeler, the paring knife will be your go-to knife whenever you have a pile of potatoes to get through. Don’t be put off from cutting those potatoes with your paring knife either as although they are small they are mighty. A chef’s knife will make lighter work of cutting larger and bulkier food items like potatoes but a paring knife is also up to the task.
Utility Knife
The utility knife wits halfway between the larger chef’s knife and the smaller paring knife when it comes to size and weight. This means it is good for chopping and slicing vegetables such as onions and tomatoes, as long as it is sharp. As you’d guess with the name, however, the size and weight of the utility knife mean it’ll be comfortable to use across a range of cutting tasks. If you don’t have specialized boning and fillet knives in your kitchen, then the utility knife will be your tool of choice whenever you need to do both tasks.
Bread Knife
The bread knife is a specialized cutting tool in that it has been designed with a serrated blade so that it slices through loaves of bread without having to put too much downward pressure on the bread. The edge means the blade can slice across the bread rather than having to cut down and through it. The bread knife is an essential knife simply because if you don’t have one, you won’t be able to get nice and even slices of bread.
Carving Knife
Carving knives are long and slim and have a sharp point. This knife often comes in kitchen knife sets meaning you may already have this one. The long thin blade makes slicing through meats and joints easier with sawing at the meat as a bread knife would do. Carving knives are perfect for cutting beef, chicken, turkey, pork, or lamb, particularly if it has just come off the BBQ. If you’re a meat-eater, you should have a carving knife in your collection
Conclusion
So there you have it. With just 5 knives in your kitchen, you’ll be able to confidently attempt to cook 99% of dishes and even perform butchery tasks on raw meat and fish. If you need new kitchen knives, you should look for the above knives individually before you start considering those big kitchen knife sets with sometimes up to 30 different tools. Rather than spreading the cost across a variety of different cutting tools that you won’t use that often, concentrate your outlay on the knives that matter.
A big thanks to the Helpful Chef team for helping us put this guide together.
