Reviews you can trust.
See why.The Best Electric Knives
Motorized cutlery may seem like a 1960s artifact, but we found one newer model to be surprisingly useful.
Top Picks
See Everything We Tested
What You Need To Know
Electric knives may seem like relics of the past, but they’re still shimmying away in 21st-century kitchens. An electric knife has two identical serrated blades, riveted together, which are snapped into a motorized base that doubles as the knife’s handle. At the touch of the start button, these dual blades move in opposite directions—one forward, one backward—which creates a sawing motion that cuts food with minimal downward pressure. This makes them useful for delicate items, such as breads and other baked goods, that you want to cut without squishing and especially good for cutting skin-on poultry without ripping or pulling the skin.
In theory, an electric knife does most of the work for you. But we hadn’t been impressed when we previously tested them; overall, they shredded poultry and were irritatingly loud. Our former winner, the Oster Electric Knife Set, was recommended only with reservations. But with new models available, we decided to retest the category. Were any of these newer retro devices up to snuff?
To find out, we chose four top-selling electric knives, priced from roughly $20.00 to roughly $125.00. Slicing poultry and bread are two top uses for electric knives, so we used each knife to carve a large roasted turkey and a smaller whole chicken, as well as to slice loaves of both crusty and soft bread. For comparison, we also carved a turkey and a chicken with our winning chef’s knife, the Victorinox 8” Swiss Army Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife, and cut both kinds of bread with our winning bread knife, the Mercer Culinary Millennia 10” Wide Bread Knife.
Slicing ability, comfort, and noise level emerged as our most important criteria. We also looked at features including different types of blades, storage options, safety locks, and built-in cutting guides.
When it came to slicing ability, we were surprised to find that the breads—both hearty and delicate loaves—were more challenging to slice than the birds. One knife seemed to float atop the crusty loaf of bread, literally only scratching the surface. The other models performed better, but all struggled with the tough loaf bottom. (We had to tilt each loaf on its side, a trick we use with regular bread knives, to finish the job.)
And even if the knives did bite in, sometimes their slices were ragged. One knife required significant downward pressure to cut through dense bread, which squished the loaf and resulted in uneven slices. Another model handled the crusty bread well but had issues with delicate Japanese milk bread; the bread shifted under the knife’s pressure, again making it harder to cut a clean line. The rest of the knives performed better, but in general, we ...
Everything We Tested
Recommended
- Comfort: 3 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Slicing Ability: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Our top performer carved meat with ease and sliced crusty bread better than most of the other knives, but what really set it apart were its noise level and its comfortable handle. This model was the quietest in the lineup, making it far more pleasant to use, and it was the only product that had a rounded handle with the start button located underneath. It occasionally gave us slightly ragged slices when we cut delicate breads, and we would have liked to have a case for blade storage—it was the only product that didn’t come with a storage option—but those were minor drawbacks for this otherwise high-performing model.
Not Recommended
- Comfort: 1 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Slicing Ability: 2 stars out of 3.
This knife took a bit longer than others to cut through the Japanese milk bread and felt less powerful than other knives when we carved turkey, but its cutting abilities were generally OK. The bigger issue was comfort: The handle vibrated more intensely than others, and holding down the start button hurt our thumbs a lot. This knife also lacked a safety lock, which was a major drawback. We felt anxious whenever we momentarily set down this knife, because there was a risk we might inadvertently hit the start button when we picked it up again—or that someone else might accidentally turn it on.
- Comfort: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Slicing Ability: 2 stars out of 3.
This knife had a difficult time cutting through crusty bread, as it often hovered on the surface without actually biting into it. After numerous attempts we had only a faint line to show for our efforts, but we eventually got some traction after tilting the loaf so we could cut through the side instead of cutting through the top. The handle was also problematic: Its squared-off edges were uncomfortable to grip, and it got warm after minimal use. This knife was also unpleasantly loud.
- Comfort: 1 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 0.5 stars out of 3.
- Slicing Ability: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This model was much larger than the rest of the lineup and resembled a small power tool. Given its size we weren’t surprised that it sliced well, but it was awful to use. It was the loudest knife in the lineup, registering 89 decibels—nearly equivalent to a lawn mower’s 90 decibels. If that wasn’t bad enough, this knife’s start button required us to push down and forward, jamming our thumbs into an unnatural position. This model also came equipped with a guide light that did nothing but distract us from the task at hand; it didn’t illuminate the cutting area but instead aimed a tiny beam of light to the left of the blade.
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
0 Comments
