How Many Kitchen Knives Do You Need

A chef s knife a serrated knife and a paring knife.

How many kitchen knives do you need.

You may like them and use them on occasion but the truth is 90 of all cooking jobs and for 90 of all cooks these four workhorse knives will serve you beautifully every time. The short answer is you don t have to. A chef s knife sometimes called a cook s knife is the most important knife to have in your kitchen. It is very important that you like this knife.

However a kitchen doesn t just come fully equipped. This is a great question. Less than you think the kitchen really is the heart of the home. The average home chef can probably accomplish everyday kitchen tasks with a bare minimum of 3 kitchen knives.

If you can have only one knife this is the one to have. And to be honest the bread knife doesn t really count. You can pennypinch on that one 2 if you already own a number of kitchen knives and you re trying to keep them in tip top shape and you re feeling burdened with the thought of sharpening and honing them all. A chef s knife is the go to tool for more than 90 percent of daily kitchen tasks mcdermott notes including most slicing and dicing of fruits vegetables meats and fish.

This is the knife you ll use the most to chop dice peel and smash and it can handle many slicing tasks. We like to avoid cliches whenever possible but we ll confess to calling our chef s knives our babies every once in a while. The main reason for this is because it s where the food is prepared and we all know that good food is a direct route to the heart. Now that you know what each knife looks like and what it does it s time to determine which knives you absolutely need in the kitchen.

The selection of kitchen knives you will need really depends on what you do most in the kitchen. There are four basic knives that everyone should have. You ll start to get used to the weight of it in your hand so that if you pick up someone else s knife it will feel unfamiliar. How many kitchen knives do you really need.

I ll let you in on a trade secret these are the knives you ll find being used most often in 90 of all professional kitchens too. An 8 chef s knife. You and this knife will do most of the kitchen work together. Most chefs need only two or three knives to accomplish all the jobs they do in a kitchen.

Don t forget to store your knives the right way too. A chef s knife european style or gyutou japanese style is a workhorse. You don t need them. These four should be your every day work horse knives.