No matter whether you cook for pleasure, or cook because takeout is too expensive, a good set of knives can really make your time in the kitchen much easier and more efficient. If “squishing” or “bludgeoning” are more accurate descriptions of what your knives are capable of than “cutting” or “slicing,” or if you’ve only ever been using plastic-handled knives that routinely knock around your kitchen drawer with other cooking utensils, it may be time for an upgrade.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Chavez, a Senior Chef Instructor for the Institute of Culinary Education, uses this budget-friendly Western-style Calphalon blade in his kitchen.
“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 basic sharpening steel is the only tool you need to maintain your new 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.
