You may be surprised to hear that you honestly don’t need too many knives to get more jobs done. My simple answer would be 3 knives is sufficient for most your cooking requirements. It’s sort of a less is more approach here.
So here are the three knives I recommend keeping in your kitchen:
A: Chef Knife
B: Bread Knife
C: Paring Knife
I guess you’re wondering what the benefit of keeping to just three knives really is? Well firstly if you’re out shopping on a budget, limiting yourself to just these 3 blades certainly does save quite a bit of money. There’s no need to buy an expensive set, most things can be achieved just using the 3 blades mentioned.
By sticking to just three, you can go for some very high-quality knives, I like the look of the Japanese Chef Knives myself, check out my 3 best Japanese Chef Knives here. Obviously, you don’t really need to worry about an expensive bread knife, that one you can play around with a little.
When you only have a few knives to look after you can really take care of them, keeping them sharp and in top condition. If you have too many knives this can quite quickly become a bit of a burden and take the fun out of cooking with top quality kitchen knives.
What other knives could you add if you wanted to?
Obviously, you don’t have to stick to just 3 knives. If there’s more than one cook in the family it can make sense to have extra kitchen knives available. You may also like to perfect different styles which can benefit from more specialist blades.
A second paring knife or chef knife is often useful, if I were getting a second chef knife I would aim for a slightly smaller option, perhaps a 6-inch blade.
A long thin slicer for the Sunday roast is another great idea for those of you who don’t cheat a little and use an electric carver of course. Perhaps you’re someone who likes to butcher fish or chicken, a fillet or boning knife would certainly come in handy in these situations.
What other knives do you think are a must for the kitchen? Comment below and join in the discussion.