Kitchen knives are the tools you’ll use almost every time you cook. Having a few blades you love is important, but you probably don’t need more than three or four.
While quality kitchen knives aren’t necessarily inexpensive, you don’t need to spend several hundred dollars or go all-out for an extensive set of professional knives.
When buying kitchen knives for the first time (or the third or fourth time), a little intel will help you get quality tools you know how to use and avoid buying a pile of cutlery that will likely collect dust in the drawer or knife block.
To learn more, we spoke with Stephen Chavez, Senior Chef Instructor for the Institute of Culinary Education in Los Angeles, to get his advice on buying kitchen knives for beginners.
Avoid bloated knife sets
If your knife block or magnetic holder is running out of space, you probably have too many.
First of all, you probably need fewer knives than you think, so walk away from those multi-piece butcher block options or other over-the-top knife sets, and save yourself some money in the process. Three specific knives, with a fourth, knife-adjacent option, cover all the main functions you’d need for any cooking project.
The kitchen knives every home cook should have
There are three or four few must-have blades that you’ll want in your collection, in addition to good steak knives for setting the table with on steak night.
A chef’s knife
Made In makes one of our favorite chef’s knives, the essential for any kitchen.
“First, you need a chef’s knife,” says Chavez. “It can be an eight inch knife (by far the most common,) a 10 inch or a 12 inch, based on what you’re comfortable with, but you have to have a great chef’s knife.” Chef’s knives come with many variations, outlined below, but a chef’s knife is your primary workhorse when it comes to slicing and dicing. It’s the knife you will reach for a majority of the time, for the biggest variety of uses. After evaluating several for sharpness, balance and value, these are the best chef’s knives to buy.
A paring or utility knife
Paring knifes aren’t just for paring, although they do that task particularly well.
“You don’t need a big knife all the time, however, so you definitely also need a paring or utility knife,” says Chavez. “It can be as small as a four inch blade, or it can be more like a six inch blade, but it needs to be something for handling smaller tasks, like slicing garlic, turning an artichoke or hulling strawberries.”
A paring knife also comes in slightly different weights, shapes and sizes, but its utility is for those tasks where the sheer size of a chef’s knife can get in the way. Where a chef’s knife is like an extension of your hand, a paring knife is more like an extension of your finger.
A serrated knife
Soft tomatoes and crusty bread require a serrated knife to properly slice.
“And then the third knife that you absolutely need is a serrated knife or a bread knife,” says Chavez. A serrated knife is one that has teeth. You might think of it as a kitchen saw because that’s the action it performs. “Because of the serration it’s able to go through things like a crust really well,” says Chavez. “So we use it mostly for bread, but also for things with very delicate skin, like tomatoes,” he says, which can otherwise be hard to cut cleanly unless you actually manage to keep your chef’s knife razor sharp.
How to properly use a chef’s knife
Before getting into the nitty gritty of what you should look for in a knife, here’s a mini knife skills lesson from a culinary school instructor. “A mistake that a lot of people make with knives is that they use a knife like a chopper,” says Chavez, “so they’re going from the top and then pushing down.”
When you’re looking for a chef’s knife, understanding how you’re going to put its length to good use is key. “Blades are long for a reason — you are meant to slice from heel to tip or from tip to heel,” says Chavez. “You start at one end and then go all the way to the other end, using more than just two inches of the blade.” Your chef’s knife is the most dramatic one in terms of its length, but the same wisdom holds true for both your paring knife and serrated knife as well. Understanding the mechanism and how it is designed to work will help you figure out which knives are best for you.
What to look for in a chef’s knife
If you’re going to splurge on one kitchen blade, make it the chef’s knife.
Since the chef’s knife is the main event, it’s important to know what you’re looking for, as there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to a chef’s knife.
“Sometimes chef’s knives have a belly on the handle, and some of them are straight,” says Chavez. “Some handles are wood, and some are composite.” Many chef’s knives are about 8 inches in length, referring to the length of the blade itself, not including the handle, but may vary between 6 inches all the way up to 14 inches. The width of the blade itself may also range in size, all of which affects the overall weight of the knife.
A comfortable handle and good balance are key elements to consider when choosing a chef’s knife.
The way the blade is made, whether the handle is wrapped around the continuation of the blade material or is affixed as a separate piece, and what the blade is made of all account for the quality of the knife and its relative price.
The most important thing for beginners, however, according to Chavez, is how it feels. “The knife chooses you as much as you choose it,” he says. (We both acknowledged the obvious correlation here to buying a wand in the Harry Potter universe.) “It has to feel right, and you just have to do what feels good for you in your hand.” This is a case for buying a knife at the kind of retailer where you can actually handle samples, and not just pull a set encased in plastic off of a rack.
Heavier weight knives may seem counterintuitive at first to those who’ve never handled them, but it’s their relative weight that does the cutting for you. Lighter weight, Japanese-style knives have their acolytes, but a lighter weight knife requires more power from the person doing the cutting.
Read more: What’s the Difference Between a Western and Japanese Chef’s Knife?
How much does a good chef’s knife cost?
Mercer’s $18 chef’s knife isn’t as sturdy as others we’ve tested, but it can handle most of your regular slicing and chopping.
Chef’s knives have a wide variety in prices, depending on many of the variables outlined above, but the good news is, “they don’t have to cost an arm and a leg,” says Chavez. “You can buy the $25 Dexter Russell version of a chef’s knife, and it’s gonna do great for you,” he says. “It’s will come really sharp, but it’s not the most durable, so it may only last you a couple years, and need replacing.”
“If you want to buy a well made Japanese knife or heavy duty German knife, that may cost you $100, just for the chef’s knife, and it can go up from there,” he says. (Chavez uses a Messermeister knife — an 8 inch chef’s knife costs about $128. My culinary school chef’s knife is a Wüsthof, which retails for about $170. I also have cheaper ones from Cuisinart and Calphalon that I use.)
This budget-friendly Calphalon blade is among my collection.
“If you’re an average cook, do you need a $400 chef’s knife? No, you don’t,” says Chavez. “You just need one that’s going to feel good for you, that’s in your comfort zone, in your price range for what you’re gonna do.” Chavez recommends going to a kitchen-specific store such as Williams Sonoma or Restaurant Depot and speaking to the salespeople there about your budget and the kinds of cooking projects you regularly do to find a knife that best suits you.
A pair of kitchen shears is also helpful
Don’t sleep on a good pair of kitchen shears to round out your collection of blades.
“Kitchen shears are a must, too,” says Chavez, essentially a pair of scissors for use in the kitchen. (And not to be used on anything other than food.) They can be used for snipping herbs, especially if you grow them indoors, slicing scallions as a garnish right onto whatever they’re garnishing, slicing pizza or even taking on heavy duty tasks such as cutting through chicken bones.
Two bits of good news about kitchen shears: they often preclude the need for a cutting board, so that’s one less thing to wash, and they can be acquired for cheap. “The ones that I use are Oxo Kitchen Scissors,” says Chavez. “They’re sharp, they have big handles and they’re take-apart, so they’re easy to clean.”
Since buying a chef’s knife is a very personal decision, kitchen shears or scissors can also make a great gift for a culinary beginner.
Advice for maintaining your kitchen knives
A basic honing steel is the only tool you need to maintain your knives.
Once you’ve acquired a few good knives, the best thing you can do is maintain them. “A sharper knife is a safer knife,” says Chavez, which can be counterintuitive to most people who haven’t had the benefit of professional knife instruction. “A dull knife is way more dangerous. A dull knife can slip. A dull knife can move on you when you’re trying to cut,” he says, especially when you need to apply more manual force when using a dull knife.
Knives should be hand washed, dried and stored properly after use, either in individual sleeves or on a magnetic strip. Don’t leave them exposed inside your silverware drawer.
A honing steel is an important part of your knife collection, but understand that what it does is not sharpen your knife, but help keep it sharp. “Your steel hones your blade, bringing it back to being straight,” says Chavez, which helps it maintain its sharpness but doesn’t actually sharpen it. “You can get one with a nice diamond grit for around 25 bucks.”
“Sharpening takes away metal,” he says, exposing new steel and reducing the size of the edge to yield a precise cut. “That is best done professionally.”
For more, learn how to properly sharpen a kitchen knife and avoid these bad habits that will ruin your blades.