In Praise of the Vegetable Knife (And a Great New One to Try)

© WÜSTHOF

Recently, we've been hearing a lot about the importance of knife care.

Last week, The New York Times went deep on the value of basic knife skills. It informed us about how important a sharp knife is, how it can reduce our workloads, and how, used properly, it can even make our food better. However, it never touched on what type of knives we should be using.

For many people, the chef's knife is the quintessential kitchen tool. And they are amazing. They're incredibly versatile and can do a lot of different jobs in the kitchen, whether cutting raw meat, chopping herbs, or even slicing a small homemade pizza. But there's another type of knife that deserves some love, too, and it happens to be my current obsession: The vegetable knife.

The differences between these two types of knives are all in the details. They both have the same shapes and angles, but the vegetable knife has the addition of predominate holes along the blade with a raised edge right above. These two components combined mean that every vegetable you slice will fall right of the blade, never sticking. This may seem like a minor bonus, but for dishes such as Avocado, Orange, and Jicama Salad, or preserving sliced dill pickles, it can take minutes off preparation time, purely because there is no stopping and releasing involved. With summer—and summer vegetables—just around the corner, having a good vegetable knife will be a worthwhile addition to your kitchen.

So consider it. Especially since Wüshtof just came out with this amazing variation Classic 8" Vegetable Knife (pictured above), which is currently one of my most prized kitchen items.