1,612 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 77 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies that are necessary for its operation.
By continuing to browse, you agree to their use (learn more...).

The right bread knife

We almost all have a bread knife in our kitchen, that is to say the knife we use almost exclusively to cut bread.
Is this knife efficient, is it really the one you need? Here is some information to guide you in your choice.

13 K

Keywords for this post:Knife Bread Size Blade Cutting Saw

Last modified on: September 15^th 2022

For this post Comments Lasts posts Follow

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

découpe de pain

First of all a statement: It is not easy to cut bread with an ordinary kitchen knife, the blade is too small, it does not allow to cut a bread beyond a baguette, and its small handle does not ensure a good grip.
You really need a specific knife for that, and which has, if possible, the following characteristics.

couteau à génoise

1) A serrated blade
That is to say with teeth, we often say "saw knife", as opposed to a smooth blade, which allows an easier cutting of the bread.
You will sometimes read, here or there, that you should not "tear the bread crumb" with a serrated blade, but this is nonsense.

2) A long blade
This is the main defect of bad bread knives, their blade, although serrated, is not long enough to allow a good cutting. With a long blade, your gesture will be more ample, therefore easier, and the cut more regular.

3) A wide handle
It is absolutely necessary that you have a good grip on your knife, so that its handle is comfortable and well adapted to the size of your hand.

4) Practical materials
It is not an obligation, but your bread knife must be easy to use and maintain, which in my opinion implies both a stainless steel blade and an abs plastic handle or equivalent that does not fear water.

With all these criteria, it is quite simple to find the ideal knife, the choice is quite vast fortunately.

To make a long story short, the main defect you will encounter is a blade that is too short. I advise you to opt for a blade of 10 inches (25 cm) minimum.
You will easily find a lot of bread knives with a 8 inches (20 cm) blade, which certainly cut, but are much less efficient than a 25 cm blade.

taille des lames des couteaux à pains

The trick I suggest is to look for, or go to a professional store, and choose what they call a "sponge knife", which is a saw knife with all the criteria we just mentioned and a 11 inches (28 cm) blade.
You will be delighted with its efficiency, to easily cut from the smallest to the largest loaf, and to make even slices.
The next time you go to your bakery, look at the knife that the sales team uses to cut the bread for the customers, it is exactly this model.

To sum up: For your bread knife, you need a stainless, long (10 inches (25 cm) minimum) and serrated blade.

Lasts posts

Season to the right level

When you need to salt something—for example, fish fillets before cooking them—you’ll naturally sprinkle them with a pinch of salt using your fingers. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this very ordinary gesture, which is done all the time in the kitchen, and yet there’s a...
October 14^th 20261,5055

How to Properly Fill a Jar

When you have a jar in your kitchen that’s almost empty—flour or almond flour, for example—you’ll probably refill it before it’s completely empty. And that’s a great way to go about it—no one wants to run out of an ingredient right in the middle of a recipe. Once you’ve...
October 2^nd 20261,0905

Serving Temperature for Wine

When it comes to serving wine, you may (like me) have a fairly simple rule of thumb: red wine at room temperature, and white, rosé, and yellow wines in the fridge until it’s time to serve them. It’s very easy to remember, but it’s a bit simplistic, and you’ll see that there’s a much...
September 23^th 20261,1725

Hot Emulsified Sauces

In French cuisine, sauces are a very important part of a recipe—not just a side dish. In fact, they’re so important that, especially since the time of Auguste Escoffier, they’ve been classified into categories. And among these categories are “hot emulsified sauces,” or lukewarm ones. ...
September 9^th 20261,5915

Hot Dishes and Cold Dishes

When plating or serving a dish—whether hot or cold—on a plate, it’s very important to make sure they’re both the right temperature; in other words: if the dish is hot, the plate should be hot, and conversely, if the dish is cold, the plate should be cold. Is this really important? Let’s...
September 2^nd 20261,3393

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other articles you might also like

The march forward

When professionals get to work in their kitchen, lab or bakery, they are (if they are conscientious) very sensitive to hygiene and cleanliness. It is impossible for a good baker for example to do a day's work without regularly cleaning the table where he or she works, and it is even more...
June 30^th 202122 K5

Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!

When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy. It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see...
June 19^th 202316 K5

Devising a recipe

A question I'm often asked is: how do you come up with your recipes? How do you perfect them? This is something I've already mentioned on this page, but I'll take this opportunity to go into a bit more detail.
October 15^th 201219 K4.4

Preservative oil, an asset for taste

When you prepare a dish using an ingredient that has been preserved in fat, for example a springtime mixed salad with tuna in oil or sun-dried tomatoes, you're probably going to make a french dressing (vinaigrette) next. In that case, why not use the preserved oil from the tuna or tomatoes?
June 5^th 20249,2375

Raising (or leavening) agents

When we want to make a dough or batter rise when baking, either in patisserie or bread-making, we need to use a raising agent or leavening agent, one of which is called leaven. In the context of baking, a raising agent is simply what "makes something rise". It is a substance which, when added to...
June 16^th 202160 K4.8