The Best Paring Knives

The blade on this paring knife is identical to that of our original winner; it’s just as sharp, thin, and nimble as ever, and it’s capable of making ultraprecise slices and incisions. Its plastic handle is easy to grip and accommodates large and small hands easily. In addition, the handle doesn’t add too much weight to the knife overall, allowing for agile, effortless use.

This knife was “superadept”; its sharp, flexible blade nimbly hugged curves, so we could surgically remove peels or cores without plunging too deeply. It was the lightest knife we tested, with a slim handle that a few testers found insubstantial but most praised for its ability to disappear in your palm and become an extension of your hand: “There’s no disconnect between my brain and the blade.”

Our old winner had a comfortable handle, but it felt a hair less sharp and agile for certain tasks. It was great for slicing cheddar and crunching down through apple cores, but for more nuanced jobs, like sliding between the skin and flesh of fruit, its thick spine and rigid blade made it feel a bit “like a bulldozer.” That said, its sturdy design and weight inspired confidence on the cutting board.

This “razor-sharp” little knife earned praise for its edge, which arrived and remained impressively keen throughout testing. But it was more rigid, so it was less adept at hugging curves and removed slightly fatter peels. Its blade was the shortest in our lineup, at 3 inches, so testers struggled to cleanly quarter whole apples and often had to make two cuts. A minority of testers found its handle a bit too plump.

This knife was the heaviest we tested and the second longest, so it crunched through apples with confidence and ease but felt “a little remote” on more delicate tasks, “like I’m trying to use a chef’s knife to do paring tasks,” said one tester. Its weight also tired our hands eventually, and while its stiff, thick-spined blade was quite sharp, it wasn’t flexible, so it struggled on turns.

This knife looked like a miniature chef’s knife, with a wide triangular blade. Its blade was strong and sharp, so it made straight cuts extremely well. We docked minor agility points because the blade was also thick and stiff; we could feel it “trailing” around curves, and its weight tired our hands after a while. A few testers thought the slightly rotund handle was harder to grip, but most found it okay.

We really liked this little knife at first. It looked just like our winner. But its edge didn’t last; by the end of testing, it couldn’t cleanly slice paper. We measured the blade at 3.25 inches, so its length wasn’t problematic—it just didn’t stay sharp enough. Its handle was also slightly bigger than others, and some testers complained that it didn’t sit as comfortably in their palms.

“Is that an oyster knife?” asked almost every person who walked by this knife in the kitchen. The answer is no, but it does look like one, and much like an oyster knife, its tip wasn’t very sharp, so it couldn’t hull strawberries as deftly as others. The rest of its blade was reasonably sharp, but its fat handle felt cumbersome for some.

This long, skinny knife was very sharp, but its handle was off. It was too long, was broader at the end, and tapered as it approached the blade, which gave it a weird momentum, like our hands were always sliding toward the blade. It was heavier, too, which was taxing after a while. It wasn’t very flexible and had a thicker spine that dragged when we peeled fruit.