Different Types of Kitchen Knives

Parts of a Knife

Understanding the parts of a knife is integral to learning about the various types of kitchen knives and how they’re different. The graphic below shows the parts of a knife to help you identify them on your own kitchen knives.


Here's an explanation of the different parts of a knife:
Bolster: The bolder is only found on forged knives. It is a thick band of steel between the hell and the handle that helps balance the weight of the knife and prevents the user's hand from slipping.
Butt: The butt is the end of the knife's handle.
Edge: The edge is the sharpened side of the knife's blade that you use to cut. Keeping your knife's edge sharp prevents accidents while cutting.
Handle: The handle is the section where the user holds the knife. This part of the knife may also be referred to as the scales.
Heel: The heel is the rear portion of the blade, and it’s most often used for cutting tasks that require a lot of force, such as cutting meat or dense vegetables.
Point: The point is the tip of the knife. It is often used for piercing through products.
Spine: This is the unsharpened side of the knife blade that is opposite the edge.
Tang: The tang is the part of the blade that extends into the handle to provide balance. Full tang blades are considered superior in balance and durability. A sub tang or half tang knife is less durable but more economical.

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1. Boning Knife

Design/Purpose

A boning knife has a blade that is short and thin, and it is used to remove the main bone in a piece of meat such as a beef roast or a large ham. The long, narrow blade makes it easier to manipulate around the bones, and the blade is always rigid and proportioned to the size of the bone that is being removed, meaning there are many different designs of boning knives.

Features/Styles

The blade on a boning knife must be rigid and not too flexible because otherwise, the blade can bend too easily and therefore injure someone. Not surprisingly, smaller cuts of meat can be cut with smaller, less rigid blades, while larger cuts can be made with knives that are a little larger in size.

Sizes

Boning knives can be many sizes when you include the entire knife, but the blade is usually five or six inches in length and no longer.

Materials

Many boning knives are made of stainless steel and other strong materials, in large part because they must be rigid and extremely strong in nature. Many online stores, including Hayneedle, have a variety of boning knives in stock.

2. Bread Knife

Bread knives are long and serrated but have a rather thin blade that allows the user to easily slice pieces of bread off of the loaf without squishing the bread. They are incredibly sharp so that they will slice through the bread, rather than smashing it together and squishing it. By using a sawing motion, the user can easily cut through not only bread but also melons and other soft foods. Due to the serration of the blade, a bread knife will produce far fewer crumbs than a regular knife would cut through a loaf of bread.

3. Butter Knife

Design/Purpose

Since butter knives are made to apply soft foods such as cream cheese, peanut butter, jelly, and jams, or butter on dinner rolls and bread, they are usually very small in size and have blades with blunt edges, meaning it is all but impossible to cut anything with a butter knife. Of course, they are made for spreading, not cutting, so this design is never a problem.

Features/Styles

Although butter knives can come in various styles and patterns, most of them come with a complete set of flatware and therefore match that flatware perfectly. Some companies do make individual butter knives that don’t accommodate any flatware sets, but whether they do or don’t come with other knives, spoons, and forks, they are available in a wide range of patterns, designs, colors, and even shapes.

Sizes

Butter knives are usually approximately four inches in length, and even though different brands vary a little, they are all around the same size due to the fact that they essentially serve only one purpose.

Materials

The handle and the blade of a butter knife are usually made out of the same material, usually in materials such as stainless steel, which is perfect for the spreading of various food items onto rolls and bread. A good example of a high-quality butter knife can be found online in stores such as Home Depot.

4. Carving Knife

Carving knives are ideal anytime you are going to be serving a large piece of meat and want to make a show of cutting it at the table. These knives are available as either electrical or mechanical knives, depending on your personal preference and how easily you want to cut through large pieces of meat. They are very long and serrated, which helps the knife edge grab the fibers of the meat to make clean cuts. By using a sawing motion, it’s easy to quickly cut through turkeys, roasts, and hams without accidentally shredding the meat.

5. Cheese Knife

Design/Purpose

Cheese knives have thin blades so that they can easily cut through both hard and soft kinds of cheese. The blades are typically either short and wide or very narrow. Many of them come with a forked tip, which is perfect for lifting pieces of cheese, as well as cutting through citrus fruits or spearing onions or cherries if you are a bartender making drinks with these ingredients. In other words, the main purpose of a cheese knife is to make it more convenient to cut and slice cheese.

Features/Styles

Since cheese starts to harden as soon as the air hits it, it is usually left uncut when it’s on a cheese plate, and therefore cheese knives with heavier or wider blades are usually included because these are easier to cut and slice hard cheese. Cheese knives come in a wide variety of sizes and lengths, but the shorter ones allow people to cut through cheese that is extra-hard or firmly textured, which is why these are so perfect for cheese boards.

Sizes

Although cheese knives vary in size, most of them are between five and six inches long, making them perfect for the use for which they are intended, regardless of what type of cheese you need to slice or cut.

Materials

Cheese knife handles can be made of everything from different types of wood to fancy ceramic, and almost everything in between, and online stores such as Etsy carry numerous types of cheese knives.

6. Chef’s or Cook’s Knife

Design/Purpose

An all-purpose knife used by chefs to do everything from mince to slice and chop to dice, these knives come in a wide variety of sizes and lengths, and the longer ones are the ones that most people associate with this type of knife. They cut meats and vegetables and dozens of other foods, and for various reasons, most chefs prefer the ones with longer blades.

Features/Styles

Chef’s knives come in a basic style, and the smaller ones are usually known as mini chef’s knives, while the longer ones are associated with the traditional cook’s knife. Depending on the knife’s balance, heft, and weight, they can be used for heavy-duty work associated with thicker cuts of meats, or lighter duty, such as with fruits and vegetables. The length of the knife is also important, because the longer the knife, the more difficult it is to handle and the heavier it is, which is why usually only cooks with large hands prefer the larger chef’s knives.

Sizes

Most chef’s knives are six, eight, 10, or 12 inches in length, with each one being preferred by certain chefs for various reasons. The length preferred by chefs usually depends on what they are cutting and the mass and type of the food they wish to ultimately produce, which is one of the many reasons why they come in so many sizes.

Materials

Online research can help you find the perfect chef’s knife, and you can start with sites such as Hayneedle.

7. Clam Knife

Design/Purpose

A clam knife has one main purpose, and that is to open a clam or oyster’s hard shell so that you can get to the meat inside of the shell. Blades with beveled edges are common because they are easier to insert into the shell, which is usually closed very tightly, not to mention easier for the blade to be twisted so that the shell is pried apart easily.

Features/Styles

Clam knives usually have short blades and short handles, although the handles also come in longer versions. The knife usually has a sharp edge to makes cutting the mussels out a lot more easily, while other clam knives have notched blades that make it easier to keep the shell open while you’re removing the meat.

Sizes

Although the handles of clam knives can vary in length, most are short so that the work that needs to be done is a lot easier, and the blade itself is always short – usually no more than four inches in length. The knives’ small size makes both prying the shells open and cutting out the meat a lot easier and more efficient to do. A smaller size simply makes the task at hand more convenient, not to mention faster.

Materials

Because it is the blade on a clam knife that is its most important feature, the handles on these knives can be made out of almost any type of material, from wood to ceramic and even items such as tortoise shell or metal.

Stores such as Etsy offer clam knives that are both standard and fancy.

8. Cleaver (aka Butcher Knife)

Design/Purpose

There are many different purposes for a cleaver, including shredding, pounding, chopping, or crushing various ingredients and materials. It is usually designed with a blunt, flat side, which is usually used to pulverize meat, as well as a beveled blade that makes chopping through bones, hard materials, or vegetables a lot easier.

Features/Styles

Cleavers have rigid and wide blades that usually taper to an edge that is sharp and made for cutting. The blade is always thick and well-balanced, and there is sometimes a flat end that is used for crushing garlic, seeds, or other items. It typically includes a hole at the top end of the blade that makes it easier to hang up the knife when it’s not in use, which is a very convenient feature that most cooks love.

Sizes

Sizes of cleavers can vary, but most are approximately seven inches in length, which seems to be the perfect size for everything it is meant to do.

Materials

Stainless steel blades are the main material in a cleaver, and its handles are usually made of either solid wood of some type or even stainless steel, leaving you with many options from which to choose.

All types of cleavers can be found in reputable stores such as Home Depot.

9. Deli Knife

Design/Purpose

A deli knife is designed the way it is primarily to make sure you can cut through various types of sandwiches, including very thick sandwiches. It is designed with an offset blade that makes it easier for your hand to hold the knife correctly, meaning it will be kept up and away from countertops or cutting boards while you push downwards as you cut the sandwich. It is also easy to position and controls the knife when performing this task, enabling you to utilize the entire length of the blade while cutting.

Features/Styles

Deli knives usually contain serration that is rounded, allowing it to release resistance while you cut through foods. This results in less food being pulled out of the sandwich so that you can produce the thick, deli-style sandwiches that everyone loves.

Sizes

Although there are various sizes of deli knives, most of them are approximately eight inches long, which makes working with them very simple and convenient.

Materials

The materials used in deli knives usually include high-tech stainless steel for the blades and some type of hard timber for the handle. A variety of deli knives can be found online.

10. Dessert Knife

Source: Amazon

Dessert knives are generally eight inches long and have a very narrow blade with either a point in or a rounded tip. Dessert knives that have a pointed tip can be used to cut through hard desserts, while ones with rounded tips are used to section off pieces of soft desserts. These knives are not generally included in a flatware set, and, while they can be used in informal dining situations, they are generally used on more formal tables.

11. Devein Knife

Design/Purpose

Shrimp always have veins that run down the length of the food item, and a good devein knife is designed to remove that vein easily and quickly. It is also easy to cut a slit through the shrimp’s length first, making the removing of the vein even easier, or you can push up the knife through the entire body of the shrimp and remove both the shell and the vein simultaneously, making this knife a truly diverse product.

Features/Styles

There are various ways to devein shrimp, but regardless of the method you choose, the style and shape of a devein knife is there to make the process faster and simpler, which is extremely important when you’re running a busy restaurant or you are used to cooking regularly for large groups of people. In short, a good devein knife saves you both time and money, not to mention waste when it comes to the shrimp you’re preparing, all of which are important.

Sizes

Devein knives can come in various sizes, but their blades are typically limited to around three inches long because any longer than that and the process can be made more complex, which no one wants.

Materials

Devein knives are usually made with wooden handles, although the wood doesn’t necessarily have to be super strong because the action involved in deveining shrimp doesn’t require much strength or work. Online stores such as Wayfair have great selections of devein knives made in various designs and sizes.

12. Dinner Knife

The longest knife that you’ll find in your set of flatware, the dinner knife is incredibly versatile, and it is used during both informal and formal meals. It is perfect for not only cutting your food but also for pushing it onto your fork. When used in informal dinner settings, it is normal for families to use a dinner knife in place of a butter knife in order not to dirty as much flatware during a meal.

13. Fillet Knife

Design/Purpose

Used mostly for filleting fish, a fillet knife usually has a blade that is both flexible and thin. This allows the knife to be moved along the fish’s backbone more cleanly and easily, not to mention move around the areas that are adjacent to the bones. It also makes it much easier to slice along the skin in an even series of cuts in order to remove it from the flesh more easily.

Features/Styles

The main reason fillet knives are built the way they are is to make it simple to slide the knife through even the toughest types of fish, and if you’d like to compare various fillet knives, there are websites that can help you do this so that you can make the best decision for your particular situation.

Sizes

For obvious reasons, fillet knives need to have blades that are quite large, which is why most of them are between six and 11 inches in length. This helps you fillet fish of all sizes and types with ease, making this once-dreadful task a lot simpler and quicker in the end.

Materials

You can find more information and tips on fillet knives by visiting well-known, helpful sites such as Houzz.com.

14. Frozen Food Knife

Design/Purpose

Because frozen food is always very hard and rigid, these knives are designed to cut right through them with ease. A coarse, saw-toothed blade is usually part of a frozen food knife, which can be small but will always cut through a variety of hard materials, including metal surfaces. It is specifically designed with this purpose in mind, so whether you are cutting open a box of frozen peas or a larger block of frozen bread or vegetables, the task is much easier and faster in the long run.

Features/Styles

Many frozen food knives have blades that offer a different type of serration on each edge, making them more personalized and able to handle a wide variety of frozen foods. Having extra-long blades, these knives can have handles made of a variety of materials, including wood, hard plastic, and others, although most of them are made out of some type of timber.

Sizes

Since frozen foods come in a variety of sizes, frozen food knives usually have blades that are very long, often from 13 to 15 inches in length. This means that regardless of the frozen food you need cut, the knife can accommodate you.

Materials

Like most kitchen knives, frozen food knives are usually made of stainless steel and have handles that can be made of wood or other materials. There are many types of frozen food knives, some of which are quite unique.

15. Granton Edge Knife

The Granton edge knife is recognized for it’s identical dimples along the blade. It’s designed for slicing meats including turkey, salmon etc.

16. Grapefruit Knife

Design/Purpose

The main purpose of a grapefruit knife is to more easily cut away the meat from the fruit’s skin if you need to serve just half of the grapefruit. This task may sound easy, but without the proper knife, it can be complex and nearly impossible, which is why these knives are specifically designed for this task.

Features/Styles

They usually are either double- or single-bladed knives but have at least one serrated edge. There is also a curved blade on one end that is used for cutting away the meat from the outer skin, and the dual-bladed products have serrated blades at the end of every handle. When double-bladed, the second blade often contains two parallel blades that are closely aligned or one blade that has a slit in the center. Each of these blades is used to more easily cut between the linings that separate the meat on the inside of the grapefruit and to produce various sections.

Sizes

Most grapefruit knives are approximately eight inches long, which is needed because many grapefruits can get large in size and need a bigger knife to complete the task.

Materials

With stainless-steel blades, the handles of a grapefruit knife can be made of hard plastic, celluloid, wood, or even stainless steel. Websites such as Etsy offer some very unique grapefruit knives.

17. Jamonero Knife (Ham Carving Knife)

A Jamonero knife has a long, sharp, flexible blade used for carving ham.

18. Lettuce Knife

Source: Amazon

Design/Purpose

A lettuce knife has a serrated edge that can slice lettuce easily and without allowing the edges to turn brown. Since cutting lettuce with a metal knife can cause browning of the edges of the lettuce, lettuce knives are always made of plastic in order to avoid this scenario.

Features/Styles

Plastic knives with serrated edges always work best when cutting lettuce, and this also enables you to purchase the knives in various colors, which is a great idea when you are trying to color-coordinate your kitchen. It also usually has a long handle and wide blade, making it easier when you’re working with large heads of lettuce. Many of the knives are also ergonomically designed for better efficiency and less hand pain when you’re dealing with large numbers of lettuce heads, which is an added benefit of using this type of knife for your lettuce for this scenario.

Sizes

The sizes can vary with each type of lettuce knife you find, although most of them tend to be roughly 10 to 12 inches long, including both the blade and the handle.

Materials

The entire knife is made of plastic because this is the main reason behind its design and purpose. Stores such as Wayfair usually provide a wide inventory of knives, including lettuce knives.

19. Oyster Knife

Oyster knives are short, pointed symmetric bladed knives with bent tip used for extracting oysters out of the shell. They are very strong so they can withstand twisting tension to crack open the shells.

20. Paring Knife

Design/Purpose

Paring knives are used to peel, cut, core, and mince a variety of foods, much of which is small, which is why they are usually very small and designed with a sharp, straight blade.

Features/Styles

Paring knives usually have narrow, thin blades which come to a point at their tip. It is easy to handle and maneuver and works especially well with small ingredients or foods, including fresh herbs, garlic, and shallots. The blades are extra-sharp, making it simple and fast to handle these types of foods.

Sizes

Since paring knives are mostly used for small foods, they tend to be only three to five inches in size; however, this makes the size perfect for their intended use.

Materials

Paring knives are always made of high-quality stainless steel, and their handles can be made of hard plastic, stainless steel, wood, polypropylene, or numerous other materials. If you’re interested in viewing the many different types and designs of paring knives, visiting stores such as Home Depot can get you started on your research.

21. Peeling Knife (Curved Knife)

The hallmark of a peeling knife is the thin curved blade with sharp, strong point used for peeling fruits and vegetables.

More petite than a paring knife but infinitely more useful, the bird's beak is the only small knife you need. The bird's beak knife has a two- to three-inch blade. It's the bird's beak knife.

22. Santoku Knife

This is a general purpose kitchen knife that is ideal for mincing, slicing, and dicing. Considered a very well-balanced knife, they are traditionally thinner, shorter, and lighter than a chef’s knife. They have scalloped edges up along the blade which actually allow air to pass between the knife and the item that is being cut. This makes it significantly easier to remove your food from the blade itself, especially if you are slicing something incredibly thin that may become stuck to the blade.

Due to the weight distribution of this knife and the comfortable design of the handle, although it is ideal for anybody to use in the kitchen, it is very popular with women or men who have smaller hands. Because it is so easy to hold, there is less of a concern that you might accidentally injure yourself when using this type of knife.

23. Steak Knife

Steak knives are incredibly sharp knives that are used at the table to cut steak and other types of meat. They have durable and serrated blades that can easily cut through even tougher meat without being damaged. Because of this, individual users at the table can easily take care of cutting their own meat. They often have wooden handles, although some steak knives are available with bone handles for those who are interested in something of a little bit higher quality or more attractive. While advances in the 1950s resulted in steak knives that can stay sharp without being serrated, serrated steak knives were already very popular and well established, and they continue to be used to this day.

24. Tomato Slicing Knife

It’s not easy slicing tomatoes if you use the wrong knife. They quickly squish as you try to slice through the tomato skin. The solution is getting a knife designed specifically for slicing tomatoes. 

This knife has an extremely sharp serrated blade with a sharp point. The blade itself is very thin so you can slice thin slices.

25. Deba Knife

The Deba knife is a pointed-blade Japanese kitchen knife used mainly for cutting fish, and also for cutting meat and poultry. It is Ideal for heavy tasks but Deba knives should not be used to cut thick bones.

Debas are thick, stout knives traditionally used in Japan for filleting fish. Some users adapt the edge of these knives to other kitchen tasks such as parting out poultry or for use as a vegetable cleaver but the knife is designed to excel in the preparation of fish. Most debas are single bevel meaning the knife is ground on one side only and the back side of the knife is flat. Single bevels knives have more acute angles on their edges that excel at cutting softer, thinner product like fish but in return require a different skill set to use and sharpen.

Buyers should have some familiarity with the uses and maintenance practices of single bevel knives to fully enjoy most debas. There are some “Western Debas” which are ground on both sides. These knives are designed to handle very heavy tasks like splitting chickens or gourds.


26. The Kitchen Shears


Basically a pair of scissors. Except that since they’re for various uses in the kitchen, from snipping herbs, cutting veggies to sectioning chicken and even outdoor work, the shears usually come with extremely strong and sharp blades.

Some shears that are designed specifically for fast cutting of green onion or other herbs may have more than one blade. However, the blades on those shears are usually thinner, weaker, and take more effort to sharpen than ordinary shears.


27. The Nakiri Bocho


The Nakiri bocho is a Japanese style knife used mostly for cutting vegetables. It features a thin and wide blade and squared off tips.

As it is designed for chopping veggies, the knife has a straight blade that can cut through long items (think eggplants, carrots) as well as make super thin slices out of cucumber, bitter gourd, tomatoes and the likes.



28. Mezzaluna Knife








A mezzaluna is a knife consisting of one or more curved blades with a handle on each end, which is rocked back and forth chopping the ingredients below with each movement. They most commonly have a single blade, but are sometimes seen with two or three blades.

It is typically used for mincing herbs or garlic, but it can be used for chopping other things such as cheese or meat. Very large single blade versions are sometimes used for pizza. Common uses in Italy include preparation of a soffritto or a pesto, etc.


29. Electric Carving Knife






An electric carving knife, commonly known as electric knife, is an electrical kitchen device used for slicing foods. The device consists of two serrated blades that are clipped together. When the appliance is switched on, the blades continuously move lengthways to provide the sawing action. They were popular in the United Kingdom in 1970s.