The Essential Knives You’ll Find in Most Knife Sets

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Knife sets vary in the types of knives they offer. Typically, the more knives in a set, the higher the price rises. While it’s awfully convenient to have a versatile collection for all your cooking tasks, you also don’t want to get saddled with a bunch of frilly knives that you never use.

Perhaps you need a quick course on the different kinds of knives standard in most sets and how they’re used.

Chefs knife Usually 8 to 12 inches long A chefs knife is your all-purpose knife responsible for most of your cutting tasks: chopping, mincing, dicing. With a long, wide blade, it can even cut through bone.
Paring knife 3 to 4 inches long A paring knife handles the smaller, more delicate tasks, such as peeling fruit and deveining shrimp.
Cleaver 6 to 8 inches long; 3 inches wide A cleaver comes in handy jointing poultry. While you can joint meat with a chefs knife too, you risk dulling or damaging the blade.
Filleting knife 4 to 6 inches long A filleting knife, being long, slender, and flexible, does what its name suggests: fillets fish. You can also bone meats with its sharp edge.
Bread knife 6 to 10 inches long With its serrated edge, a bread knife can saw through bread without crumbling or crushing it.
Carving knife 8 to 15 inches long Thinner than a chefs knife, a carving knife makes slim, precise cuts through big chunks of meat.
Boning knife 5 to 6 inches long Thin and flexible, a boning knife works its way into meats to remove the bones.

Santoku knives are gaining popularity and finding their way into knife sets. Similar to chefs knives except lighter, they feature indentations along the blade that reduce friction between the food and the blade. They slice through tough food easily without it sticking to the blade.

Utility knives, typically around 5 inches long, are still found in many knife sets. They’re between a paring knife and a chefs knife in size, but they’re generally too big for delicate tasks and not sturdy enough for heavy tasks.

Brittany Rowland Brittany Rowland researches new developments in Appliances, Kitchen and CE products features with a vigor to which few would aspire… but someone has to do it. See more about Brittany

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