If you could only have 3 kitchen knives....what length would they be?

[Daniel Koster]

If you could only have 3 kitchen knives....


what length would the blades be?





***be sure to vote in the poll above***



Also, feel free to say which brand/make is your favorite!




For me, the lengths would be:

3" - paring knife
5-6" - general use
8-9" - chopping, mincing, dicing




Dan

 

[firebert]

I've been giving this a lot of thought recently. I'm planning on making a set of three kitchen knives soon.

My plan so far:

Paring knife: 3-inch blade, very thin grind with distal taper. Should displace as little material as possible.

Utility: Five or six inches, long enough to cleanly cut a big onion. I want this blade to be a little tougher as it will be used for a variety of tasks: chopping, opening packages, and so on.

Chef: I like my chef knives about 8 inches long with a classic French profile. This blade will also be ground thin (but not crazy thin) with a distal taper. Should be able to handle both slicing and chopping/dicing tasks easily.

 

[Tony_A]

3" paring knife
8" chef's knife
10" bread knife

I love to cook, yet I'm sure I easily could do 95%+ of my tasks just with those 3.

 

[wildmike]

5 inch blade for general purpose, an 8 inch chefs for normal stuff and a 9-10 inch for heavy cutting. Currently I use my EDC for the light stuff, A 6inch german mercer for general use and an 8 inch shun classic. I also use a chinese cleaver a bit.

 

[Capt. Carl]

I only have one...a 7 incher.

 

[ryknife]

A 3 inch paring, a 7 inch offset serrated, and a 9 inch chef knife are my top 3 choices.

 

[Andrew Colglazier]

If you could only have 3 kitchen knives....


what length would the blades be?


For me, the lengths would be:

3" - paring knife
5-6" - general use
8-9" - chopping, mincing, dicing




Dan

Those are exactly the choices I made, for those exact reasons. :thumbup:

Andy

 

[lambertiana]

I like a 4" parer, 6" utility, and 9-10" chef.

 

[iBlade]

I have a small paring knife that gets a lot of use, also a really big knife for carving meat, slicing pumpkin, anything that needs hard use and control, then a middle size knife for potatoes, I also have a good srrated long knife for gourmet bread/bagels etc...next I want a...

 

[paua]

At this moment I have 7 kitchen knives. Five of them are 10" ones. So my kitchen knives do fit three different kind of sizes.

 

[Eazy_tom]

3-3 1/2 inch parring knife, 5-6 inch utility knife, 10 inch chefs knife.

 

[mdauben]

I just voted for two lenghts, because that's all I have in my kitchen and that's all I think I need. An 8-inch Chefs knife and a 3 1/2 inch paring knife. Those to allowing to do all the food prep I need. I've got a few other knives in my kitchen, but I just never seem to use them.

 

[CWL]

Same as Dan, except I prefer a 10" Chef knife.

 

[ceiw]

Dan...does this mean you're going to come out with a kitchen knife set??

 

[MacHete]

For me, the lengths would be:

3" - paring knife
5-6" - general use
8-9" - chopping, mincing, dicing

Dan

Add up to 1" to each of those and you've got my choices.
I used to be really excited about Henckels, but there are a lot of other options out there now.

 

[thombrogan]

I use a 10" or 10.5" chef knife for peeling, coring, hulling, julienning, and dicing and a 6" serrated utility for slicing bread and other baked goods.

 

[Roger999]

10" chef's knife
7" serrated knife
4" paring knife

 

[Knife Outlet]

I use light Japanese knives so I tend to have longer lengths than most people. The basics for me are a 3" parer, 9 1/2" gyuto or chef knife and a 12" slicer (you could sub a 10" bread knife if you like.) I could easily be talked into a 10 1/2" gyuto.

 

[thombrogan]

I could easily be talked into a 10 1/2" gyuto.

Yoshikane is now making western-handled gyutos in 9.4" and 10.5" blade lengths. Maybe Drew could hook you up?

 

[Ijfleming]

Ehh, limiting me to 3 knives is rather difficult... At the Culinary Institute of Canada I mainly use my 4" paring knife, 10" chef knife and 12" serrated knife. At home I'd normally swap the chef's knife for a 5" santoku, but if I were to just use 3 I'd stick with my chef's knife.