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See why.The Best Chef’s Knives for $75 or Less
Our longtime favorite chef's knife is sharp, capable, and comfortable to hold. But is it still the best?
Top Picks
What You Need To Know
Our favorite inexpensive chef’s knife is the Victorinox Fibrox Pro 8-inch Chef's Knife. We’ve routinely tested and recommended this knife for nearly three decades, and for good reason: It cuts foods of all kinds effortlessly, is comfortable for hands of all sizes to grip, and arrives and stays quite sharp. It’s also reliably durable, easy to sharpen, and well-made. We think it’s the best choice for most people. We also love the Mercer Culinary Renaissance 8-Inch Forged Chef's Knife. It’s just as sharp and adept in the kitchen as our top choice and is a great option for cooks who prefer heavier knives and don’t mind a slightly slicker handle.
What You Need to Know
A good chef’s knife is a cook’s best friend. It’s arguably the most important tool in the kitchen, an essential all-purpose blade that can do everything from small, precise tasks (mincing garlic) to minor butchery (breaking down a chicken, filleting a fish) and a whole lot in between. Many say that if you buy just one knife, let it be a chef’s knife.
We’ve recommended our favorite chef’s knife for almost three decades, retesting it repeatedly since new knives enter the market all the time. To see if our favorite held up to the competition, we tested it against a fresh crop of options. Since our favorite doesn’t cost much—usually less than $40—we set the price cap for our lineup at $75. We focused on knives with blades measuring about 8 inches, as we’ve found this length to be the most useful and versatile for most cooks. And we limited our lineup to knives with stainless-steel or stain-resistant steel blades because they are the easiest to care for (see our testing of carbon-steel knives).
What to Look For
- A Sharp Blade: A sharp knife is a pleasure to use, making quick work of any task. We think a chef’s knife should be keen and ready to use right out of the box, since not all cooks have the equipment or skills to sharpen their knives at home. Two main factors determine sharpness. One is edge angle—the angle of the blade on either side of its cutting edge. The narrower the angle, the thinner the cutting edge and the sharper the knife can feel in action. Most of the knives we tested had narrow edge angles of 13 to 16 degrees, which would—in theory—be enough of an angle to make a knife feel sharp. In practice, the sharpness of many of the blades came down to a second factor: how well they had been sharpened and honed at the factory. The best knives had smooth, even-looking edges with no chips. Our top two knives had edge angles on the upper half of the range but had been nicely sharpened so that they glided through onions and tomatoes as smoothly as knives with narrowe...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Blade: 3 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 3 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 3 stars out of 3.
Our longtime inexpensive favorite remains a pleasure to use. With a sharp, gently curved blade, it effortlessly dispatched every task we set before it, mincing garlic precisely and breaking down chicken and dense butternut squash with authority. Its light weight and rounded spine made it easy to wield for long periods, and its textured plastic handle was comfortable to grip for hands of all sizes.
- Blade: 3 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 3 stars out of 3.
This knife ran a very close race with our winner. It had a very sharp, gently curved blade that tackled every task well, and its rounded spine was easy to choke up on when we used a pinch grip. It’s a little heavier than our winner, but some testers actually preferred that extra weight, finding it “solid” and “authoritative” in their hands. And it’s just as inexpensive. One small quibble? The handle is made from a somewhat slick plastic that sometimes felt slippery when wet or greasy.
- Blade: 3 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 3 stars out of 3.
This knife is nearly identical to our favorite. It has the same sharp, relatively thin, gently curved blade, so it excelled at every task we gave it, mincing garlic and powering through butternut squash equally well. And it's even lighter in weight, so we could use it effortlessly for long periods. Testers just didn't like its handle quite as much as our favorite's—it's longer, it’s slightly slicker, and it has an indentation in its belly, all of which made it less comfortable to grip.
Recommended
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 3 stars out of 3.
With a razor-sharp, gently curved blade, this knife made quick work of most tasks, mincing and dicing with precision and maneuvering nimbly between joints when we broke down chicken. A few small flaws kept it from rating more highly. There’s a little less clearance under the handle than we’d like, so our fingers sometimes hit the cutting board when we sliced or diced. And the spine and butt of the blade had square edges that occasionally dug into our fingers when we used a pinch grip. Like several of the other knives, it had a slick plastic handle that was a little slippery when wet. But in general, we thought this was a respectable option.
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 3 stars out of 3.
This knife had an especially narrow edge angle on its well-sharpened blade, rendering it extremely keen and capable of dispatching all tasks admirably. We just wish that the blade itself had a slightly less pronounced curve, as we found that we had to raise our arms and wrists awkwardly when rocking the blade from tip to heel. The spine and butt of the blade were also squared off, so they occasionally dug into our hands. And like those of several other knives, the handle was made of plastic that got slippery when wet, though it was otherwise comfortable to grip in different positions.
Recommended with reservations
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 2.5 stars out of 3.
We liked the rounded contours of this knife’s handle, which made it comfortable to hold in multiple positions. We just wish that the handle itself had been made from a slightly grippier material, as it was occasionally slippery when wet. The blade was a touch less sharp out of the box than we’d like, and its spine was squared off and thick from heel to tip, crunching through onions and garlic instead of making precise incisions and occasionally getting wedged into butternut squash.
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This knife was heavy, solidly made, and pretty sharp. Despite its heft and acuity, it struggled to cut through bone-in chicken parts. With a spine that was thick from heel to tip, it crushed onions and garlic instead of dicing and mincing them precisely and got wedged into butternut squash, struggling to make clean cuts. The handle was easy to hold in a number of positions, but we wished that the plastic were a little less slick and the design a little less boxy—it didn’t nestle into our hands quite as comfortably as other handles.
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This French knife felt fairly sharp, dispatching most tasks capably. With a spine that was thick from heel to tip, though, it was a little less precise on fine tasks such as mincing garlic and dicing onions. Its deeply curved blade reminded one tester of a pirate’s cutlass and sometimes put our arms at an awkward angle when we sliced. While the wood handle was nice and grippy, it had uncomfortable squared-off edges and was poorly constructed—the two halves of the handle started to separate after a few washes. Because the blade was shorter, there was less clearance under the handle, so our fingers sometimes got squished on the cutting board as we chopped.
- Blade: 2 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Most users took one look at this inexpensive, incredibly lightweight knife from Thailand and called it a toy. But its blade usually felt quite keen; as a result, it sailed through most tasks. That said, it had been so poorly sharpened that we could see tiny chips in the blade before it had even been used, giving us concerns about its longevity. Because the blade was so thin, it was also unnervingly flexible, bending and wobbling dangerously when we applied pressure to cut through bone-in chicken. The blade was so short that our fingers hit the cutting board as we sliced. We also disliked the unfinished wood from which the handle was made; while it was plenty grippy, it felt rough and got more so with every wash.
Not Recommended
- Blade: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Handle: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Sharpness: 1 stars out of 3.
In theory, there was nothing seriously wrong with the design of either the blade or handle of this restaurant-industry favorite. The handle was made from a rubbery material that made it easy to hold, though some found that it was so grippy that it was actually hard to change hand positions. The blade was gently curved and tall at the heel, providing adequate space under the handle for our fingers. And the spine tapered nicely from heel to tip, allowing for both precision work and power when cutting through butternut squash. But the edge was dead dull, crushing onions, parsley, and garlic; struggling to bite into tomatoes; and failing to get a grip on slippery chicken skin, sliding off it instead of biting in. If you’re willing to sharpen this knife before you use it, it might be worth a try—but for most of us, the lack of a good edge upon arrival is a deal breaker.
Reviews you can trust
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. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Miye Bromberg
Miye is a senior editor for ATK Reviews. She covers booze, blades, and gadgets of questionable value.