If you’ve been feeling that your current kitchen knives just aren’t cutting it, then getting a new set might just be the right course of action for you.
But with all the options we have readily available for us at the click of a button, it can be very hard to find trusty kitchen cutlery that you can use for years upon years.
The easiest way to shop for quality kitchen knives is to know exactly what you’re looking for, that way, you don’t end up having your judgment clouded by the sheer amount of options available.
So in this buying guide, we are going to go through a couple of tips that you can use to help you narrow down your options, and hopefully, it will make finding the right kitchen knife for you much easier!
Read on to learn more.
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Stick To The Essentials
If you’ve been considering building up a kitchen tool-kit from scratch, it could be easy to get distracted by the large cutlery sets with numerous pieces, but a lot of times, you might even end up not needing all those different knives.
“In the kitchen, you will really only need four knives” – said Andy Wang, a professional chef. These are the chef knife to be used as an all-around tool, a slicer for cutting cooked meat, a utility knife that is smaller than a chef knife which you can use for smaller ingredients, a serrated knife for cutting breads and cakes, and a paring knife that you can use to peel fruits and vegetables and also cut up small ingredients.
If you have these four tools in your kitchen, you’ll be able to handle just about any prep job you can imagine and be able to slice ingredients for a wide variety of recipes.
Of course, for certain techniques and cooking styles, you will need more specialized tools, and that’s exactly what we tackle in the next tip.
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Know Your Needs In The Kitchen
Once you have all the essentials in your kitchen, it’s time to consider your own cooking style and the recipes that you will find yourself cooking.
From there, you can figure out what specialized kitchen cutlery you need.
For example, if you think you’re going to end up processing large chunks of meat in the kitchen, it might be beneficial for you to get a set with a meat cleaver.
Or if you prepare a lot of Asian cuisine, you might benefit from getting Japanese style kitchen knives such as a nakiri or santoku.
Finding the right specialized tools will highly depend on what you find yourself doing in the kitchen, and it will be very different for everyone, so make sure to really ask yourself, “what extra tools would I need in my kitchen?” before going out and buying yourself a set.
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Think Of Maintenance
Another thing to consider when buying is the maintenance of your knives.
If you are pressed for time in the kitchen and work on a fully-loaded schedule, you might want to get your hands on dishwasher-safe blades, as these won’t require you to hand wash and dry the tools after every use.
That being said, if you’re getting a high-quality set made out of premium materials, you would not want to put them in the dishwasher as that can do irreversible damage on the blades.
So take note that if you get dishwasher-safe blades, they may not be of the highest quality.
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Hold The Knife
Now, we’re taking a look at the easiest way to find the best knives for you: holding the blade.
Everyone has their own unique grip and a different way of holding their tools, so you won’t find one universal knife that fits comfortably in everyone’s hand.
It’s for this exact reason that you have to make sure to hold the knife before buying it, and it’ll even be better if you can go through the motion of cutting and slicing while holding the blade, even if you aren’t cutting through any ingredients.
This will give you an accurate feel of how balanced the knife is and how comfortable it would be to have it in the kitchen.
Conclusion
And with that, our quick guide to the easiest way to find a great kitchen knife ends.
Now, take note that this is a quick guide, so there may be some other things that you would have to consider when going knife shopping.
For example, you have to take note of the knife steel and construction of the blade, which in itself is a very dense world that can sometimes be intimidating, but don’t worry, once you get over the first learning curve it will be very easy.
But by using the tips we provided in this article, you will be armed with enough information to find a quality set of kitchen tools that will just feel right in your hand and be able to accomplish all your needs when cooking.
And now that you have all this information, all that’s left for you to do is head out and find the right knife for you!
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