Tell me more ×
Seasoned Advice is a question and answer site for professional and amateur chefs. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 63 down vote favorite
18

I consider myself a serious home cook. What knives are essential?

share|improve this question
Protecting this question, as it's starting to pick up a few too many spammy, duplicate, and/or off-topic answers. – Aaronut♦ Jun 8 at 22:23

11 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

In order of importance (for me):

  1. Chef's knife (8 or 10 inches) - high quality
  2. Paring knife - Get it at the checkout for < $5.00, and replace annually
  3. Bread knife - I would go mid price on this one.
  4. Honing Steel - Longer than your longest knife.
  5. Carving knife - High quality.
  6. Shears - Either go high quality and sharpen, or low quality and replace.
  7. Boning knife (If you don't do much butchery, omit) - medium quality.
  8. Fillet knife (Increase in priority depending on how much fish you eat) -High quality.
  9. Peeling knife [a paring knife with a hooked peak]

High quality knives hold their edge, and will need sharpening once every year or two. Medium quality - need sharpening every 6 months or so, will be ground down in 5 - 10 years. Low quality - don't bother sharpening. The steel sucks, just replace it.

Generally, you need the first 3. Get the rest as need and finances dictate.

share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

Has anybody mentioned a steel? Buy a steel before you buy a good knife. You could buy the best quality knife of the planet but it won't make a lick of difference if you cannot maintain the quality of the edge.

I use a 33cm wooden handle Victorinox chef's knife for most of my work. I steel it several times a day and sharpen it on a wet-dry stone about once a month. Every chef I have worked with who has picked it up has loved it despite being a cheap brand.

share|improve this answer
+1 because it's a good point that sharpening/honing tools matter more than the knife in the long run. I think a good ceramic steel/sharpening rod is the best choice, because it has a slight grit which sharpens the knife as it hones; in contrast a traditional grooved steel dulls the edge with repeated use. – BobMcGee Jul 3 '11 at 19:20
up vote -2 down vote

Any Henckel set is a really decent place to start, though not exactly inexpensive. The better sets are well worth it and will literally last a lifetime. My sister inherited and uses some blades that my mother had been using 20 years; they were very well cared for, and all still cut flawlessly.

My favorite blade by far is their Santoku style chef's blade, which appears to be popular around here. I use it for vegetable prep such as squashes and potatoes, salsa chopping, cutting steaks from roasts, and even quick fat trimming from larger red meats (nothing too precise).

share|improve this answer
1  
Because the question was asking for only which knives are essential, I don't think this is a very helpful answer. Henckels sets also include quite a few product lines, not all of which are of quality construction. It is also debatable if Henckels sets represent a good value, when you can get a professional grade chef knife from the Victorinox Fibrox line for about $30. – BobMcGee Apr 13 '12 at 18:40
Disagree because of a) my experience, and b) the manufacturer and retailers alike stand behind these good products. And, my recommendation is essentially "get a set" along with information that Santoku is eminently useful, both aspects of which do answer the question. – zanlok Apr 13 '12 at 22:56
2  
"Get a set" does not appear to add anything to the question of which knives you actually need. Sets generally include knives which are handy but not necessary, which is the fun part about them. In the restaurants I've worked, all the cooks and chefs generally use 3 knives for 99% of their tasks: chef/santoku, paring knife, and either fillet, boning, or bread knife. Others got rare use, so I fail to see why a serious home kitchen would need more than an executive chef uses. If you've got something more to add to support your argument, please do so rather than downvoting my other answers. – BobMcGee Apr 17 '12 at 3:20
up vote 8 down vote

After the 3 that most of us agree on (chefs, paring, bread), my next choice would be a "tomato knife", which is a little longer than a paring knife, but serrated like a bread knife. Very handy for anything with tough skin.

share|improve this answer
7  
Sorry, but I disagree. If you need a serrated knife to cut a tomato, all that means is that your regular knives aren't sharp enough. (That said, if one has knives that can't be sharpened. a serrated knife is the way to go.) – Neil Fein Aug 23 '10 at 21:22
1  
@Niel - indeed. unless you mean a super-ripe tomato with extra slick skin, and you're too lazy to re-sharpen your knife set just for a lunch sandwich. @Michael - but, yes, I've been using my serrated Henckel steak knives for tomatoes at lunch for years, and it does work well, helping to keep the good set in the block waiting for larger preparation jobs (ie: dinner). – zanlok Dec 9 '10 at 22:52
+1 for tomato knife. Some people don't like their regular knives that sharp due to hands not co-operating with brain as well as we would like – TFD Dec 9 '10 at 22:52
up vote 29 down vote

Everyone's stressing the chef's knife, but I'd be even more generic; when starting out, you can do almost every task with:

  • A large knife (8" Chef, 7" Santoko, or Chinese Cleaver)
  • A small knife (Paring or similar)
  • A bread knife (serrated, 10" or longer)

As you add to your collection:

  • A boning / filet knife
  • Kitchen sheers (for snipping herbs without a cutting board or cutting the back out of a chicken)
  • A carving knife (for slicing meats and large melons or splitting a cake into layers)
  • A heavy cleaver (so you don't mess up your main-line knives when hacking up bones; heavy enough to use the back of the knife for cracking a coconut)
  • A utility / tomato knife (mid-sized, serrated)

A few people have mentioned a larger chef's knife, but it's going to be harder to control. Develop good knife skills first, then move to something larger.

I know a few people who do everything but bread with a paring knife (and no cutting board, in their hand, cutting against their thumb), and I'd consider them "serious chefs" (southern, over 60 for the most part, but also a few apartment living europeans)

share|improve this answer
1  
kudos on answer completeness, sir. love the idea of building the collection. good mention of cleaver blade.. I've dinged up at least 2 santoko blades on bones when trying to trim a pork shoulder or beef rib steaks. horrible practice - comes about mostly when distaste for extra dishes overcomes good sense. – zanlok Dec 9 '10 at 22:48
+1, especially for mentioning for sheers – David Aug 22 '11 at 14:44
up vote 2 down vote

If you could only buy one knife, I would get a French Chef's knife or a Japanese Santoku, probably in the 8 inch size. These knives are both used differently (different techniques) so I would also research how to properly hold and use whichever one you go with.

share|improve this answer
While I use my Santoku significantly more, it's terrible at some things that the French Chef's knife is good at. Conversely the French Chef's knife is pretty good at everything the Santoku is good at. For a newbie, I think the Chef's knife would be less frustrating. – Peter V Jul 22 '10 at 3:41
1  
I have friends who do everything they need to do with a 5" Santoku. They cook regularly, but aren't professionals, and love their knife. – justkt Aug 9 '10 at 18:41
up vote 66 down vote

There are three core essentials:

  • Chef's knife
    • 8" or 10" depending on your preferences
  • Paring knife
    • 3" or 4" depending on your preferences
  • Bread knife
    • As long as possible, 12"+
    • Feel free to go cheap here, it's serrated and thus largely unsharpenable

You may want to check out Alton Brown's book, Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen. He spends a chapter on knives and where to go past the essentials. He also suggests which ones are worth spending money on and which should be throwaways.

share|improve this answer
3  
Cutco makes serrated knives that are phenomenal - and they can be sharpened. I use a long carving knife as my bread knife, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I also use that knife for trimming meats. – JustRightMenus Jul 17 '10 at 4:27
Those three are the only ones I use on a regular basis. I occasionally use the others, but those are definitely the MUST haves. In fact, I have more than one Chef's knife because I use that one A LOT. – Nick Jul 20 '10 at 21:50
kudos on mentioning the bread knife. though perhaps not used as often in my kitchen, it's ridiculous how bad a Santoku blade is at cutting french bread! – zanlok Dec 9 '10 at 22:41
up vote -1 down vote

I've got a 6" chef's knife that I find more useful than my 8" chef

I also love my 8" Santoku

share|improve this answer
... and on the other end of the spectrum, I work in a professional kitchen and use my 8" Victorinox chef's knife more than my paring knife. A bigger knife lets you handle larger items comfortably, and in the end whichever knife you use most will become a natural extension of your body. – BobMcGee Jul 3 '11 at 19:22
up vote 4 down vote

I use three:

  • Chef's knife - sharp, straight blade
  • Bread knife
  • Sometimes a serrated knife for tough vegetables

But then I'm a vegetarian, so I don't need to cut meat.

share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote
  • Chef's
  • Carving
  • Serrated/bread knife
  • Paring
  • Filet

There are plenty more you could use (I love my Santoku), but that will enable you to do just about anything.

share|improve this answer
+1: Pretty much what I have in my kitchen, Chefs knife (about 9 inch) and paring knife (3 inch). I do wish I'd bought a longer chefs knife though, my rapid carrot chopping isn't perfect & would come off better with a longer blade :) – Binary Worrier Jul 9 '10 at 20:34
up vote 17 down vote

To me, the following are necessary:

  • A chef's knife (8 inch)
  • A paring knife
  • A bread knife

There are tasks for which other knives are more suitable, but these are the three I started with, and there's little you may need others for.

share|improve this answer

protected by Aaronut♦ Jun 8 at 22:22

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.