Paring Knives: When to Use Them
If the chef knife is the workhorse, the paring knife is the scalpel, a short, nimble blade for the small, precise, in-your-hand jobs a big knife is clumsy at.
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When to use a paring knife
- Peeling apples, potatoes, shallots.
- Trimming silver skin, fat, blemishes on meat and produce.
- Hulling & coring strawberries, tomatoes, peppers.
- Deveining shrimp and other delicate, in-hand work.
- Segmenting citrus and fine detail cuts.
Our pick: Victorinox 3.25″ Paring Knife
The Victorinox paring knife is the best few dollars you can spend in a kitchen, wickedly sharp, light, and comfortable. Buy two; you will always want a clean one.
Nicer option: Wüsthof Classic Paring Knife
Want a forged, heftier feel to match a nicer knife block? The Wüsthof Classic paring knife is a lifelong tool.
Why it matters
A paring knife handles the fine trimming that makes farm-direct cuts look their best, while your chef knife does the heavy work. Together they cover almost everything.
FAQ
Do I really need a paring knife?
Yes, for peeling, trimming, and precise in-hand tasks, a small blade is far safer and more accurate than wrestling a big chef knife.
What length paring knife is best?
About 3 to 3.5 inches is ideal, long enough to be useful, short enough for control.
What a paring knife is for
A paring knife is a small, short-bladed knife, usually two to four inches, made for precise, detailed work that a big chef knife is too clumsy to handle. It is the tool for peeling and trimming, hulling strawberries, deveining shrimp, coring tomatoes, segmenting citrus, and any task done in the hand rather than on the board. After the chef knife, it is the most useful blade in the kitchen, handling the small jobs that come up constantly, and a good one makes fiddly prep quick and safe.
Blade shapes
Paring knives come in a few shapes suited to different tasks. The classic spear-point or straight paring knife is the versatile all-rounder, good for most jobs. A bird’s beak or tourne knife has a curved, downward blade ideal for peeling round produce and decorative cuts. A sheep’s foot blade, with a straight edge and blunt tip, excels at precise slicing on a board. For most cooks a single straight paring knife covers nearly everything, with the specialized shapes worth adding only if you do a lot of a particular task.
Choosing a paring knife
Because a paring knife is used in the hand, comfort and control matter most. Look for a blade around three to three and a half inches for versatility, a comfortable handle that stays secure when wet, and a light, nimble feel. As with any knife, the steel is a trade-off between edge retention and ease of sharpening, but for a paring knife, which does light work, even a modest stainless blade performs well. Hold it and see how it feels doing a peeling motion, since fit in the hand is everything for this small tool.
In-hand versus on-board work
The paring knife’s specialty is in-hand cutting, where you hold the food in one hand and the knife in the other, peeling or trimming with your thumb guiding the blade. This is exactly the work a large knife cannot do safely or precisely. On a board, a paring knife handles small, delicate slicing, though for anything sizeable the chef knife is faster. Understanding this division, small and in-hand for the paring knife, larger and on-board for the chef knife, is the key to using each well.
Caring for a paring knife
A paring knife needs the same care as any good blade. Hand wash and dry it immediately rather than putting it in the dishwasher, hone it to keep the edge straight, and sharpen it occasionally, though its light duty means it holds an edge well. Store it protected with a blade guard or in a block rather than loose in a drawer where the small blade can chip and where you might reach in and cut yourself. Cut on wood or plastic, never glass or stone.
Wood handles and natural materials
Like the rest of a thoughtfully equipped kitchen, a paring knife is nicest with a wooden handle and used alongside wooden boards. Wood is comfortable, warm in the hand, and free of the concerns that come with plastic, and it pairs with the durable, natural-material approach we favor throughout the kitchen. A well-made wood-handled paring knife is a small pleasure to use and, cared for, lasts for many years.
How much to spend
The paring knife is a place where you do not need to spend much. Because it does light work, even inexpensive paring knives perform well, and some cooks happily keep a few cheap ones on hand. That said, a slightly better knife with a comfortable handle and good balance is a pleasure for the constant small jobs it does, and it need not be expensive. Buy one that feels good in your hand, keep it sharp, and it earns its keep every day.
A small knife that does a lot
For such a modest tool, the paring knife handles a surprising share of daily kitchen work, quietly taking on all the small, precise jobs between the big cutting tasks. Paired with a chef knife, it covers the vast majority of what home cooking requires, which is why the two together form the core of any knife kit. Keep a good paring knife sharp and within reach, and the fiddly prep that slows people down becomes quick and effortless.
Paring knife or chef knife?
New cooks sometimes wonder which small jobs call for the paring knife versus the chef knife. The simple rule is scale and setting: if the food is small and you are holding it in your hand, the paring knife wins, and if the food is larger or sitting on a board, the chef knife is faster and safer. Peeling an apple, hulling a strawberry, or deveining a shrimp is paring-knife work, while slicing an onion or breaking down a squash is chef-knife work. Keep both sharp and within reach and you will instinctively grab the right one.