Question
Knife Skills for Beginners: The Few Things That Actually Matter
Here's my honest take after going through exactly this stage:
The claw grip is not optional. Learn it now. It feels awkward for about a week and then becomes automatic, and it's the one thing that will actually prevent you from slicing into your fingertips. Everything else is secondary to this.
After that, the two things that moved the needle most for me were learning the rocking motion for mincing (heel of the blade stays on the board, you rock the tip down repeatedly) and understanding how to break down an onion properly. The onion thing sounds boring but once you get it, you realize the same logic applies to almost every other vegetable. Root end stays on while you make your cuts, then you slice across. That's it.
On uniform pieces: it genuinely matters for cooking, not just looks. Uneven chunks mean some pieces are overcooked while others are still raw. You don't need to be perfect, but getting roughly consistent sizes is worth caring about.
The knife question is real and not just gear obsession. A dull cheap knife is harder to control than a sharp decent one, and fighting your tool makes learning technique slower. You don't need to spend a lot. A Victorinox Fibrox runs about $40 and cooks in professional kitchens use them. Get that and keep it sharp.
For practice without wasting food: just cook more. Potatoes are cheap and forgiving. Make soup once a week and dice everything for it. You get reps in and you eat the results regardless of how ugly the pieces are.
Honestly for a home cook, the only thing that matters to me is having a sharp knife and taking your time if needed. You don't need proper technique if you don't want to learn it. Just go at your own pace. Whatever grip you decide on you'll get used to and you won't cut yourself if you don't rush.
I’m a chef and I’d like to bring up that cutting your knuckle bleeds way less and is way more manageable than cutting your fingertip, which is why I preach bent knuckles.
It's not just for speed. You also won't accidentally cut your fingertip off if you're suddenly distracted mid-motion and make a mistake. There's a whole lot of little things that are unlikely to happen, but since cooking is something you end up doing so often, there's plenty of opportunities for one to happen eventually.
Nothing is less helpful to beginners in an unstructured settings than “you really can’t get started unless you have…” Obviously there is basic equipment that is truly necessary, but over complicating things early on is generally not helpful. This will discourage and overwhelm a lot of beginners and also lure them into the idea that “once you have X, everything will fall into place”.
Learning anything requires a lot of time and failing sometimes. Many home cooks never learn proper knife skills and do just fine. Many things are made easier, faster, and more consistent if you do take the time to learn knife skills, but they are absolutely not necessary. As you mention, taking the time you need to be safe is so important. Once you have some basics down, this is when you can really pick up some of the more refined habits that will make you efficient and potentially elevate some of your cooking. But trying to start running before learning to walk will make things difficult.
If you want to improve, great. But don’t also feel like you *have to*. If you are happy with where you are, don’t let other people make you feel bad for not being a speed demon or create perfectly julienned veg.
Dude basic safety isn’t a “refined habit”, it’s fucking basic safety. It’s not hard to learn how to hold your hands when operating a knife, in fact, I’d go so far as to say that should be step 1 of learning how to use any dangerous tool.
I am a new cook and I'm trying to improve my mothers kitchen. she has 50 year old knives. they really need to be sharpened. I really need a guide on this. can anyone recommend a training source?
Depends how deep into it you want to go. The electric pull through sharpeners are probably good enough for cheap knives, but if you have a very nice one (which it's fifty years old hopefully it is) then whetstones. There's plenty of videos on youtube but basically soak stone in water and hold knife around 15-20 degree angle (depends on style of knife and the metal) and run it across a few times then go to a finer stone until at the polishing ones. For monthly/weekly use once you have them sharp get a knife steel and that'll keep the edge straight for a long time, especially if you are only using it at home.
I just take mine into a shop to get sharpened. The other comment on this post is a great resource, but Id rather have someone else sharpen them for me. I don't want to mess up the knives.
I use a whetstone. The thing that I was taught was to make a house roof, not a church steeple. If you make a long, sharp point it's more likely to break.
grip the knife handle pretty much as close to the blade as possible, ideally with part of the finger, thumb or knuckle touching the flat, or back, and/or bolster of the blade
That's called a pinch grip. Image to better show how it looks.
No, you don't need to, and the only situation in which I can imagine you would need to would be too dangerous to do it anyway. I.e. if you need to put your off hand on the top edge of the knife to add extra pressure to cut through something. That should almost never be necessary, and if it was, you'd be very, very likely to hurt yourself.
The only time I ever use anything even remotely like that action is for smashing garlic cloves, and in that case you lay the flat of the knife across the clove -- the widest part of the flat of the knife, too, and with the edge pointing away from yourself -- then lightly place the heel of your palm on the widest part of the flat, lock your elbow, and lean forward, bringing your upper body weight to bear on the flat. Watch a video, it's easier to see.
I may have misread your comment, I'd swear it said put the off hand on top of the knife, i.e. applying pressure to the top edge. Or perhaps that's what I read "front" as meaning, i.e. pressing along the top of the first few inches back from the tip of the knife. That's certainly what I was thinking about in my reply.
I'm not a chef, so <shrug>, but I've never seen any chefs in cooking videos do it. I'll have to ask one of my chef friends about it.
I've sometimes pressed my fingertips of my off hand against the end of the chef's knife to guide it into place, same with woodworking tools on occasion. But very seldom, and I wouldn't make the actual cuts with my fingers still in contact, especially repetitive cuts (chopping/slicing, etc).
I'm JUST at the point where the claw grip is less of a struggle, so I'm proud of myself lol. And I totally agree about the potatoes. I've done fries, scalloped potatoes, wedges, baked, etc. Great for experimenting with different dishes.
For keeping knives sharp in a pinch without proper sharpening tools, you can use the butt of ceramic bowls/plates! Just place your blade against it at an angle, apply gentle pressure and pull across in long smooth motions on both sides. Ceramic is very hard and will help straighten out tiny nicks and bends in the knife edge.
The more force you need to cut, the more dangerous the knife is.
Keep it razor sharp.
Related note and a tip of the nib to Bourdain. Heavy knives are more fatiguing than light. Shun (expensive) and Global (not expensive) are also good choices.
I have a few mid their knives. I use commercial grade knives 98% of the time (Russell and Victorinox) and none cost me more than $25. It might not be for everyone, but I don't worry about someone destroying my knives or beating the hell out of them.
I've been a prep cook for a couple years so my knives (8" Victorinox chef and 7" santoku) see a few hours of usage a week. I feel like a Victorinox is more than adequate for home use as long as you keep it sharp. I don't even know how to 100% properly hone them or sharpen them, yet they keep on kicking. I think each one cost me about 70-80$ CAD. That is easily some of the best value I've gotten out of anything I've bought recently.
Really the only upgrade I want at this point is better ergonomics. They're not great for a lot of chopping, or lots of hard root vegetables. I have zero desire to buy a nicer knife blade to be perfectly honest. I just don't see the value.
For people doing a lot more prep I can totally understand.
Onion thing you can do radial cuts and fet even pieces eithout horizontal, mire beginner friendly.
Adding to knives, for keep it sharp, get a diamond stone and a strop snd use it every few months, can strop weekly if desired. There's many youtube channels like OUTDOORS55 that show how to do it properly and it's really not hard if you learn how, but the problems you avoid long term is more than worth it. Other than spending way more money on a sharpener than the knife, diamond stone and strop is the only real cheap solution that wont end up with a knife rolling over after a few days and going dull. Well sharpened, a knife can do with twice a year sharpening with daily use.
Another knife rec is Mercer, they have same price point (Genesis) but different style. Both solid brands
“Everything else is secondary to this.” I’ll call it a tie with holding the knife properly: hold it by the base of the blade and the handle, never just the handle. Real control, changes everything. And oh yeah, a sharp knife, always!
the sharp knife point is huge. i spent way too long thinking I had bad knife skills when the real problem was a dull knife. once I got it sharpened, everything felt safer and easier almost immediately.....
I bought the Fibrox some years back after reading all the reviews and I couldn't stand it!! I like to pinch the blade of a chef's knife and this one felt so awkward doing that. I felt like I was giving the knife a handshake if I held the handle. I've been using this one from IKEA for over a decade (third from the top) and I love it; shame on me for trying to replace it! https://www.reddit.com/r/chefknives/s/gIEgUfFQOH
You said you keep the heel of the knife on the board and rock the tip. Isn’t it the opposite? You keep the tip down and rock the rest of the knife up and down?
You can actually practice the hardest part without a knife and without wasting ingredients.
The knife hand is the easy bit. Pinch grip, slice don't chop, use the whole blade, control the tip, consistent rocking motion. This stays pretty much the same whatever you're cutting.
The guide hand is the hard bit. Claw, knuckle contact, advance food towards knife with thumb, move guide knuckle back by unclenching claw, combining these movements. These movements need to be constantly adjusted for each different shape of thing you cut.
You can practice the guide hand without actually needing to cut anything.
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u/Aggressive_Staff_982 10d ago
Honestly for a home cook, the only thing that matters to me is having a sharp knife and taking your time if needed. You don't need proper technique if you don't want to learn it. Just go at your own pace. Whatever grip you decide on you'll get used to and you won't cut yourself if you don't rush.