The Best Serrated (Bread) Knives

We’ve loved this inexpensive industry favorite for years, and for good reason. Its blade is long enough to span large loaves and pastries and tall enough to direct easily through thick sandwiches. It also has just the right number of tall, reasonably sharp serrations, ensuring that it sliced and chopped every food well. A long, rubbery handle was comfortable for hands of all sizes to grip.

With a long; tall; and extremely keen, finely sharpened blade, this serrated knife nearly edged out our top choice, slicing almost every food with authority and an especially buttery smoothness. We liked that its curved blade gave us a little extra leverage when chopping and quartering, and its long handle was easy for hands of all sizes to grip comfortably. What kept it from first place? While its serrations are few and tall, providing excellent power, they’re also rounded, so they sometimes skidded and slipped on crusty bread instead of biting into it.

This knife sliced and chopped most foods with incredible finesse, thanks to its ultrasharp serrations. We just wish that the blade itself were just a touch longer so that it could span large foods more easily and that its serrations were a bit taller to provide more bite on the initial attack. Its wood handle was long and comfortable for most hands to hold, if a little slippery because of its slick finish.

We loved this knife’s long, textured plastic handle, which was easy for hands of all sizes to grip. And its long, reasonably sharp blade generally did a very good job of slicing and chopping most foods. But its short serrations just didn’t bite into foods quite as tenaciously as the serrations on other knives.

This serrated knife has a blade that’s identical to the other serrated knife made by the same manufacturer. It’s long and reasonably sharp and performed well when slicing and chopping through foods, though its short serrations also didn’t bite into foods quite as securely as other knives’ serrations. Its plastic handle is a touch narrower and more slippery than its sibling’s but ultimately comfortable enough for hands of different sizes to hold. !

We really wanted to love this Japanese knife. It had a good number of tall, finely sharpened serrations, so it gripped foods well and sliced exceptionally cleanly. However, its handle provided very little knuckle clearance. With such a narrow blade, the handle didn’t sit very high above the cutting board, so we had to hold the handle awkwardly in order to avoid scraping our hands as we chopped chocolate or sawed through sandwiches or the bottom crusts of loaves.

This serrated blade of this knife was incredibly keen, capable of cutting paper-thin slices of tomatoes. But we didn’t love its proprietary “double” serrations—32 bigger, pointier serrations and 64 rounded subserrations positioned within the bigger ones. They often skidded over food and failed to give us the power we needed to really bite into it; they tugged the different layers of the BLT apart as we were quartering it. The blade itself was fairly short, so it couldn’t span or cut large loaves or shortbread easily. The handle was also short and thus hard for larger hands to hold comfortably. And we could have used a touch more clearance under it; our knuckles sometimes scraped the cutting board as we sliced.

This Japanese knife did a decent job of cutting most foods, as its serrations were reasonably sharp. But there were too many serrations overall, and they were too short, so it was sometimes hard for the blade to get purchase on crusty bread. The real problem, however, was the knife’s lack of knuckle clearance. With such a skinny blade, the handle didn’t rise very far off the cutting board, leaving no room for our hands to curl around it. As a result, our knuckles took a beating as we chopped chocolate and scraped the board every time we tried to cut through a sandwich or the bottom crust of a loaf. The handle itself was a little short for larger hands to hold comfortably.

We liked the look of this serrated knife’s flashy red acrylic handle, though it was on the short side and a bit slippery due to its slick finish. There was very little knuckle clearance under that handle, so we had to hold the knife in an awkward way to avoid scraping our hands against the cutting board while chopping chocolate or slicing bread and tomatoes. The blade was able to cut most foods, but with less finesse and control than ideal, as its force was spread too thinly over its many serrations.

Knuckle clearance was not an issue with this offset serrated knife, which did a great job of raising our hands above the cutting board. We also liked the leverage that we got from our hands’ higher position, as it gave us a little extra power when slicing large loaves. And the knife’s big, rubbery handle was comfortable for hands of all sizes. Unfortunately, the knife’s blade was too short, so it couldn’t easily span and cut large loaves or shortbread. It was also too skinny, so it was hard to control as we cut, flexing and wobbling as we forced it through food. While its serrations were reasonably sharp, they weren’t tall enough, so they lacked bite.

This offset serrated knife had some advantages. It raised our hands a good distance above the cutting board, preventing us from scraping our knuckles as we sliced and providing some extra power and leverage as we bore down on foods. But we just didn’t like the blade itself, as it was too short to span and slice big loaves of bread and too narrow to control easily, wobbling as we cut. While sharp, its serrations were fairly short, so the knife didn’t always bite into foods as securely. And although its handle was long, it was also a bit narrow, so we had to clench it a little more tightly while cutting.