We just moved up to a nice set of knives but the block has plenty of expansion spots.

How many types does the average person really use? We have steak knives, a paring knife, a large bread knife, the large chefs knife, and a medium size prep knife that looks like it’s primarily a dicer.

I’m stumped as to what else we would actually use.

I predict a lot of replies.

For me: an 8” chef knife, a 5.5” boning/utility knife (most used), a 3” paring knife, a 10” bread knife. And a delightful nice-to-have-but-not-essential 7” bagel knife (deeply hollow ground). The prettiest knife I own:



All except the Tojiro bread knife are US-made Chicago Cutlery.

I’m no chef but I do the cooking in my house.

I routinely use a 8” chef knife, the serrated bread knife, small print knives, and a 5” utility knife.

Also have a large slicer that is used occasionally.

We have a set of steak knives for table use that rarely get used. I also have several of each od the chef knife, paring, knife, and utility knife.

All my knife purchases will be Mercer Genesis line from here on out. The 5” utility knives are recent purchases, and I love them. They’re my go to. I bought one Genesis series and one Renaissance series, to compare the handle as they are same blade.

But for me, I haven’t found a need for anything else.

Large chef's knife
Medium chopping knife (I prefer a 5" Nakiri)
Small paring knife
Serrated bread knife

Those are the basic essentials, and even among those you could omit the medium knife if you really had to.

Everything else is gravy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get this advice and wasted money on a set. You only need 3 knives and other than the 3 knives my other knives go unused for months or years.

A few years ago, I was able to do a class with Henkel’s and for 2 hours got to test their traditional knives and Japanese knives. I prefer Henkel’s pro line.

1. Pick one - 8” chef’s knife, 6.5” nakiri, or 7” santoku. In the aforementioned class, everyone was so blown away by the 6.5” nakiri that over half the class bought it including me. Now, I have all 3 due to already owning a Henkel’s set, but the 6.5” nakiri is the knife I most often reach for. 8” chef’s knife is 2nd choice. The Santoku hasn’t been used in years.

2. Bread knife

3. Paring knife

I do fine with three- A Wusthof 6" chef's knfe, a Wusthof 3" paring knife, and an inexpensive Taiwan-made bread knife similar, but not identical to this.

All depends on what you do. For my needs, aside from a carving knife, paring knife, chef's knife and bread knife, I also have a 6 inch semi-stiff boning knife, and a breaking knife.

I have a WHOLE bunch of kitchen knives. At least 30 from inexpensive stamped steel, rubber handle Victorinox Fibrox knives to super-high-end ($500-2000) custom knives.

I would be perfectly happy at least 95% of the time with just an 8-9” chef knife and a bread knife.

Adding a boning knife would get me to at least 99%.

The low end and extreme high end really demonstrate what I put the most value on.

At the low end, in the Victorinox Fibrox line, I have an 8” chef, a boning knife, and a 5” utility knife. I use them pretty often because I don’t mind leaving them in the sink for hours, throwing them in the dishwasher, hacking at coconuts, whatever. The 5” utility is not one I use much in general cooking but use all the time when I want to cut up an apple or whatever for one of my kids and just throw the knife in the dishwasher.

At the extreme high end, I have three or four chef knives in different styles and lengths from 7”-10” and two boning knives. Those are what I reach for when I have a lot of prep work to do.

In the middle range I have a bunch of a variety of sizes and styles of general knives (chef knives, santokus, utility and paring knives), some semi-specialized stuff (boning and filet knives, nakiris, long thin slicers), and some very specialized stuff (a hawkbill fruit peeling knife, some weird serrated utility and tomato knives, stuff like that).

Some of it gets used fairly often and most of it get used at least occasionally (except small chef knives and santokus that came in sets), but it is all either overlap or not very important.

I used to use a nakiri a lot but my favorite chef knives now have a pretty straight profile that makes a nakiri fairly redundant.

I was thinking that based on my preferences and how I use knives, I would make a list of what I would get in what order if I was starting from scratch.

I got this far, basically back to the very beginning of this long-winded post:
9” chef with a straight profile like a Japanese gyuto.
Bread knife (not worth spending a lot on)
Boning knife

Then I kind of ground to a halt. Nothing else seemed very important. I guess the next would be a beater chef knife, a beater utility knife, and if you deal with a lot of whole fish, a filet knife (although a boning knife is a perfectly good substitute if the fish aren’t really big, and with a Japanese filleting technique rather than a western one, a chef knife is perfectly fine).

Some people use a paring knife a lot. I mostly use the Japanese technique of making fine, precise cuts with the corner at the heel of the blade rather than with a separate small knife.

The rest are either needlessly redundant or specialized enough that most people wouldn’t find them very useful.



Finally, at LEAST as important as all the rest of this, learn how to actually keep them sharp.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: maladat,

My experience is similar to maladat's. I have at least three knife blocks full of kitchen knives, but 95% of what I need to do is covered by: 8" chef's knife, 7" santoku, and 6" utility knife. The utility knife isn't any different than a high quality steak knife.

This topic comes up regularly, and most members also recommend a paring knife and bread knife. The 5% of the time I select something like a paring, bread, slicer, cleaver, etc, it's nice to have them, but they aren't critical.

One knife I don't hear mentioned much, but that I use more than most ppl is my little Wusthof trimming knife. It's great for stripping meat off bones.

A tool that I highly recommend but technically isn't a knife is a pair of kitchen shears. You can get a good pair for around $20.

The big three for kitchen knives:
Chef knife
Paring knife
Bread knife (serrated)

You can cook 90% of the world's dishes with those three. Put your largest investment into a solid chef's knife, get as good as you can afford. Paring knives should be cheap, never spend more than $20 for one, stamped steel is perfectly fine. Bread knives- get one as long as possible, too many bread knives on the market aren't long enough to do the job right.

If you were to purchase any additional knifes:
Second chef's knife (Western or, Japanese (santoku)
Boning knife
Carving knife
Cleaver
Can never have enough paring knives.

The upcoming RV and retirement life stage has prompted me to begin a minimalism quest. The RV can’t hold a knife set, and certainly not a countertop block.

The three-knife recommendations match my experience as minimal required.

Also important for me is a minimal sharpener, and that will relegate my motorized gizmo to surplus.

For you consideration, Kitchen Shears. I use a really good quality Kitchen Shears. They come apart for cleaning, and they are very stout.

They are especially good at breaking down a whole chicken, including spatchcocking. I prefer this over a knife blade getting dinged up.

To choose one, and they don't cost much, just get the stoutest one you can find. Don't buy a cheapie. A really good one is less than $35.00 or so. OXO makes a reall good one, around $20 or so.

There are multiple youtube videos, here is one I grabbed to show here: They really like the Shun, and it has extra features which I really like.

Concur on the three knife setup: mine is a chef's knife, santoku, and caidao.

There's a decent article on why the santoku and the chef's knife have different roles at https://kamikoto.com/blogs/fun...fe-and-santoku-knife and a good caidao article is at https://www.epicurious.com/exp...nese-cleaver-article.

We remodeled our house a few years ago. We hired a interior designer to do the kitchen layout. At the completion of the project she gifted us a two piece Cutco knife set. A six inch Santouko knife which does the heavy lifting and a smaller serrated knife which gets occasional use. I also have a Wusthof five inch boning knife for trimming cuts of meat and a twelve inch granton slicer for slicing briskets. Been considering a cleaver of some sort but more of a want than a need.

a good pair of kitchen shears.
10-12" chefs knife- nice, thick, full spine.
10" "santuku" or thinner spined knife for vegetables.
A good 3" pairing knife.
Bread knife of your desired length.

That's about the basics that one would "need".
"Want" is a whole different story!

I added a forged Victorinox Santoku to my set. It's my absolute favorite kitchen knife.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Large chef's knife
Medium chopping knife (I prefer a 5" Nakiri)
Small paring knife
Serrated bread knife

Those are the basic essentials, and even among those you could omit the medium knife if you really had to.

Everything else is gravy.

I agree. I will add that I do have a lot of gravy though.

I purchased individual knives by Yaxel and the set grew. I don't need all the other knives but they do have a niche place and make different tasks more managable.

Depending on what you do, a cleaver is essential. As is a boning knife and large chefs knife. A small knife and spreader make life much easier. A chefs knife should cut bread just fine.

I have a Zwilling Twin Signature 19 pc. set. 80% of the time I'm using my 8" chef knife or santoku. Other than that, we use steak knives, a 4 " utility knife, or the bread knife. I'll use the rest on occasion.

So NEED is the operative word.
I need only one ~ most likely a Chef's knife circa 8".
But like guns I have to have more.