Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Cutting Like a Professional Chef

Great Cooking starts with great knife skills.

From preparing vegetables for a weeknight stir-fry, to trimming herbs for a fine dining garnish or slicing ingredients for the barbecue, the way you cut your food effects everything. Precision cuts improve flavour, texture, consistent cooking and presentation.

Professional chefs spend years refining their knife techniques because precision matters. Consistent slices cook evenly, improve the appearance of a dish and help ingredients perform exactly as intended.

Our Knife Skills Guide explains why knife skills are important, the different knife holding techniques, the most common types of cuts every cook should know and which techniques are best suited to different styles of cooking. Keep checking this page as we will continue to add to our tutorials so you can keep improving your knife skills.

Why Knife Skills Matter?

A sharp knife is only as effective as the person using it. Developing proper knife skills offers several advantages such as:

·       Faster and more efficient preparation

·       Improved safety through better control

·       More consistent cooking results

·       Professional looking presentation

·       Less waste during preparation

·       Greater confidence in the kitchen

How to Hold a Kitchen Knife?

The Pinch Grip for everyday chopping, slicing and dicing.

The Pointer Grip for delicate precision tasks like scoring fish, peeling, or detailed paring.

The Handle/Hammer Grip for brute-force tasks like halving large vegetables and cutting through bone.

The Most Important Cuts Every Chef Should Know:

Baton A rectangular stick shaped cut used in professional kitchens as a foundation for many other knife techniques including julienne and brunoise.

Brunoise One of the smallest classical knife cuts in professional kitchens. The goal is uniformity, every cube should be as close to identical as possible.

Bias A simple knife cut that elevates any dishes presentation. Long, elegant slices are created by cutting at a 45 degree angle rather than the standard 90 degree angle.

Knife Skills for Different Cooking Styles:

Knife Skills for Barbecuing Barbecue preparation requires a different approach. Vegetables and meat for the BBQ need to be cut large enough to withstand high heat while remaining uniform enough to cook evenly. Whereas, herbs and veg for salsas, marinades and rubs will need finer cuts to enhance flavour and texture.

Exploring Our Knife Skills Guides

Knife skills are one of the most valuable investments any cook can make. From mastering the baton and perfecting a brunoise, to learning how to fillet a fish or perfectly carve a Sunday roast, every technique helps build confidence and precision in the kitchen.

Explore our continuously growing collection of knife skills tutorials, watch demonstrations from Michelin-trained chefs and discover how the right techniques, combined with the right GLOBAL knife, can elevate every meal you prepare.