A Beginner's Guide to Kitchen Knives

Posted by Rachel Schwartz on 7/22/2020 to Residential

row of different types of kitchen knives with shortest knife in background and largest knife in foreground

Every kitchen has knives. And most kitchens at least have a knife block set. They're one of the basic tools needed to make almost any meal. But is having one of every type of knife necessary? Probably not. There are a ton of different knives out there, all with a different shape and designed to serve a different purpose. But unless you run a commercial kitchen or are an aspiring chef, you really only need these knives in your kitchen arsenal.

A chef's knife is one of the most standard knives in the kitchen. Sometimes also called a French knife or cook's knife, this knife is good for cutting up large foods like butternut squash and roasts. This is an all-purpose knife that can be used for almost anything. Although chef's knives can be found with 8-12 inch blades, it is important to keep in mind that with this knife, the longer the knife, the harder it is to handle and the heavier it is.

Few probably know the name of this knife, but this Santoku knife is perfect for slicing, chopping, and mincing as the thinner blade edge allows for more precise work. This knife is typically thinner, shorter, and lighter than the chef's knife. Available in 5-8 inch options, make sure that this knife fits your hand shape well since this knife is not conducive to the "rocking" motion many use when slicing food with a chef's knife. Santoku knives can also be found with a standard straight edge or a scalloped Granton edge which helps prevent sliced food from sticking to the blade.

If you don't buy fresh bread in the bakery section of the grocery store or make your own at home, this knife may not be necessary to keep in your kitchen. But if you do buy or make fresh bread, a serrated bread knife is a good idea to have on hand. Designed to easily slice bread without squashing it, the serrated blade also ensures there are less crumbs than if a regular knife were used. Unlike with the chef's knife, a bread knife is actually more useful the longer the blade. An ideal bread knife is around 14 inches long.

Perhaps the most recognizable knife in the kitchen beside the butter and steak knives, a paring knife is a great knife to have on hand. While some don't consider it an essential knife to have, it can be used to peel, cut, core, mince, slice, etc. A variety of food, which makes it almost as versatile as the chef's knife. The paring knife is smaller, shorter knife with a sharp blade making it easy to handle. In addition to being fairly inexpensive to buy, paring knives can be found with smooth, serrated, or scalloped blades.

Like its name suggests, a butter knife is designed to easily spread soft foods like butter, jam, or cream cheese on bread. Due to this, the blade is pretty blunt and often has a rounded tip, making them great for their intended purpose but not for anything that needs to be cut properly. Butter knives can come in a variety of sizes but most are typically around 4 inches in length. While butter knives can be sold individually, they more often are included with a complete set of flatware.

This cheese knife is, as the name suggests, intended to cut hard and soft cheese. While cheese knives can vary in size, the average knife is 5 or 6 inches in length. Blades for this type of knife can also vary, typically either short and wide or longer and pretty narrow.

Commonly referred to as a butter knife, dinner knives often serve in place of an actual butter knife at informal, family dinner in a household. These are usually the longest knife seen in a set of flatware and are good for cutting softer foods or pushing food onto your fork during a meal. Despite their use in mostly informal settings, this knife is versatile and can be used in either informal or formal place settings.

Unless you love and eat grapefruit on a regular basis, there is a no need to have this knife in your kitchen as its express purpose is to cut grapefruit. Grapefruit knives can be single or double bladed and be single or double ended but there is always at least one serrated edge on the knife as this is what is used to cut in the grapefruit sections, Some knives also have a curved blade on one end to cut the fruit away from the outer skin. As grapefruits can grow pretty big, a lot of grapefruit knives are around 8 inches in length.

While not necessarily an essential knife, if you eat a lot of salad or find yourself chopping up lettuce or similar produce regularly, this knife is a great idea. Made from plastic, the serrated blade edge makes slicing through lettuce easy while the plastic prevents the cut edges from turning brown. And because this knife is made from plastic, it can be purchased in a variety of sizes and colors. The long handle and wide blade make cutting into large heads of lettuce easier while some lettuce knives are also ergonomically designed for improved efficiency and hand pain prevention.

Designed to cut through meat without an issue, the steak knife is the sharp knife commonly used at the table during meals. While steak knives often have wooden handles, some can be found using materials. Durable and easy to handle, steak knives can be found with a smooth blade although a serrated edge is most common.

If you are a kitchen knife connoisseur or regularly make specific foods (i.e. fresh-caught fish, oysters, etc.) then you may want to invest in some of the more specialty knives like tomato knife, devein knife, fillet knife, oyster knife, or deli knife.