Dwell On This: You Only Need These Three Knives

Any way you slice it, these are your kitchen essentials.

Text by

Gregory Han

At a Glance

Experience

The only skill you'll need is discipline.

Budget

It doesn't cost a thing to edit down your collection, but you might think about investing in fewer, better knives.

Time

You just need a few determined minutes.

Omne trium perfectum: Perfection arrives in threes. From lofty ideals (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) to earthly delights (sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll), the logic of the triumvirate has been proven many times over, and it’s also perfectly applicable within the kitchen—specifically when it comes to decluttering your dull-edged collection of knives.

Say it once, and say it again: "All I need is a chef’s knife, paring knife, and serrated bread knife." Unless you harbor aspirations to sit upon the Iron Throne, keeping extra knives around is generally a waste of space and money for the average home cook. Don’t believe us? Then listen to the curmudgeon patron saint of food, Anthony Bourdain, who vehemently noted, "[There’s] no con…so atrocious, so wrongheaded, or so widely believed as the one that tells you you need a full set of specialized cutlery in various sizes."

Instead, set aside the majority of your budget and invest in a high-quality, eight-inch chef’s knife, preferably one made of Japanese or German steel. A chef’s knife can handle the majority of tasks typically required of a home kitchen, whether it be slicing, dicing, or chopping. For everything else, a paring knife and serrated bread knife will handle all forms of fruit, vegetable, and baked goods. A honing steel is a permissible extra; using one regularly will keep your investment straight and sharp. And the best way to store those three knives? Not in a drawer or sheathed in a knife block. Keep them easily in reach, attached to a magnetic knife strip on your kitchen wall.

So, "sorry, not sorry" if you’ve got an expensive, enormous knife block sitting on your kitchen countertop right now. Like shopping malls, plastic straws, and diamond rings, thank (or blame) millennials for putting the knife block on the chopping block.