The one thing that no cook can do without in the kitchen is a good, dependable knife with a sharp blade.
When you go to your knife drawer, you need to be able to reach for the best knife for the job.
You might be looking for one that can slice through meat or fillet fish. Or a knife that can chop and dice fruit and vegetables. Perhaps you need a longer serrated blade to slice bread. Or if you just want to do everything with one knife, a chef’s knife will do all the heavy lifting and adapt to whatever you’re slicing, dicing, carving, cutting, chopping and mincing.
When working in the kitchen, your knives are the tools of your craft, helping you create thousands of different dishes from the same core ingredients of meat, poultry, fish, fruit and vegetables.
Choosing The Best Kitchen Knife For The Job
So if you want achieve the full range of slicing and chopping action, from paper thin to cutting through bone, it makes sense that you should buy the very best knives you can afford.
Choose wisely, and these will become lifelong best friends that work hand-in-hand with you to complete some of your most important kitchen tasks.
We’ve used many styles and brands of knives over the years and have always come back to a shortlist of favourites that work amazingly every time. Now we’re ranking some of the best kitchen knives we own to help you choose the right knives for you.
But First, Some Kitchen Knife Safety Tips
- A sharp knife is a safe knife, so always keep your blades sharp. A dull knife can cause you to use more pressure and if you slip, it’s easy to cause injury to your fingers and hands.
- Cut your food on a flat surface. If you’re using a chopping board, then place a damp cloth under the board to prevent it from slipping or sliding.
- Never pick a knife up by the blade, even if you think it’s blunt.
- Always cut items away from you.
- Clean your knife by hand in the sink. Ideally, you don’t use a dishwasher to clean your knife as it will limit the life of your knife and dull the blade.
- Always use the right knife for the task.
- Don’t wave the blade in the air or hold a knife while walking or talking to someone. Accidents happen so quickly.
- Never use your knife if your hands are wet.
- Store your knives safely in a knife block, a knife roll, a wall-mounted magnet or a dedicated knife drawer that’s out of reach of children.
1 Front Runner: The Best All-in-one Kitchen Knife
The Regalia Santoku 7-inch Chef’s Knife is the blade of all blades. A Japanese masterpiece, this knife is made with a super steel core, wrapped in 66 layers of Damascus steel, for unmatched strength and resilience without ever dulling or chipping.
Using the Honbazuke method, this blade is mirror polished with an 8-12 degree angle per side to make a knife that is viciously sharp. With lots of knuckle room and a handle that is immune to moisture, cold and heat, there. is nothing this knife can’t handle.
If you could buy just one knife for your kitchen, this is the blade we would recommend.
2 Best Chef’s Knife
For your everyday kitchen workhorse, look no further than the Wüsthof Classic 8-Inch Chef’s Knife.
Crafted by the German masters of knife-making, this knife is forged from a single block of high carbon stainless steel with precision edge technology that delivers 20% more sharpness than any of its predecessors.
It’s the best single choice for everyday food preparation, whether you’re dicing, slicing, chopping or mincing. The full tang from handle to tip makes it incredibly sturdy and very comfortable in your hand, with just enough weight where you need it.
There’s a reason that Wüsthof’s Classic series has been their best-selling knife range for over seven generations. This is it.
3 Best Bread Knife
Bread knives have long, serrated blades to easily carve through soft or crusty bread without sacrificing its integrity. The best slicing technique for a bread knife is to move it more like you would a saw, rather than how you’d use a chef’s knife.
The ZWILLING Twin Signature 8-inch Bread Knife is razor sharp, with an ice-hardened stainless steel blade that features 15 degree edge angles on both sides of the blade.
This is the only bread knife we use – and not just for bread!
It’s built to last and makes light work of large melons (where straight and shorter blades often get stuck) and even tomatoes, if you have it out when making sandwiches.
4 Best Paring Knife
The Shun Classic Paring Knife is a little powerhouse of performance in the kitchen.
With a shorter 4-inch blade, a paring knife offers incredible versatility across all the little kitchen tasks you need a sharp edge for. Small, nimble and easy to control, it’s the best knife choice when you want to cut, peel, chop and slice.
While you may use your other knives for cutting large produce, the paring knife is perfectly sized for reaching into small spaces, like deseeding chillies, or for precision work like scoring ham.
Clad in 68 layers of Damascus stainless steel and made by Japanese artisans to be as effective as it is comfortable, this paring knife will quickly become a mainstay of daily cooking for you.
5 Best Steak Knives
Although steak knives are less about cooking and more about eating, they’re still an important knife choice in your home. Just ask your family when they’re trying to saw through a beautifully prepared fillet steak with a normal dinner knife!
The 6-piece Scanpan Steak Knife set is so good at doing this one job that we’ve stocked up on extra sets, just in case. Made with German steel and a 30 degree grinding angle, they’re sturdy, comfortable and nicely weighted. And very, very sharp!
All it takes is some light downward pressure and you’ll be slicing through any cut of steak with silky smooth ease. They’re so popular in our house now that we can’t serve any meal requiring cutlery without them.
6 Best Cheese Knife
This beautiful hand-crafted, full tang Cangshan Cheese Knife effortlessly glides through an array of cheeses, from hard to soft.
The unique silver design makes it easy to slice with and gorgeous to look at, making it a perfect serving knife for a special cheese platter.
The scalloped and serrated blade features prong tips at the end for picking up cheese slices and oval slots on the surface to prevent cheese from sticking while slicing.
It’s not always easy to find a knife that works as well in the kitchen as it does on display in front of guests, but this one manages to do both exceptionally well.
Upgrade your manual knife sharpeners with this electric knife sharpener.
Featuring a 3-stage sharpening process with 100% diamond abrasives for straight edge and serrated blades, and precision angle guides for perfectly sharp edges along the entire blade.
Look after your your full range of knives, with perfect 15 degree blade angles, without the guesswork or risk of damage.
The ultimate knife sharpener for a lifetime of knives in your kitchen.
