“Your chef’s knife is going to be your workhorse,” Nguyen said. It’s the knife that you’re going to grab for the majority of the tasks in your kitchen, such as slicing onions, cutting butternut squash and breaking down a chicken. However, these kitchen MVPs present home cooks with lots of options when selecting one to add to your arsenal.

“But what kind of chef’s knife to buy?” staff writer Tim Carman wrote in The Washington Post. “A Western-style knife with a softer, V-shaped blade and a pointed tip? Or a Japanese santoku or nakiri knife with a harder, single-edged blade and a more rounded (or flat) tip? Or maybe a hybrid knife, like one with hard Japanese steel but a heavier, Western-style handle? The choices are seemingly endless.”

For Nguyen, hybrid knives are her tool of choice. “I basically like Western-style knives made by Japanese companies,” she said. “I like the handle. I like how it holds. But I like the 50-50 bevel because it’s easier to sharpen.”

And when it comes to sharpness, the blade’s material makes all the difference in how long it keeps its edge. “I like the Japanese powdered steel because it stays sharp,” Nguyen said. “Carbon steel is really, really sharp, but it’s also very soft and so it dulls very fast,” which means more maintenance that she would not recommend for the average home cook.

Size is another important factor in selecting a chef’s knife. Nguyen likes average eight-inch knives, because she finds longer ones can be a little unwieldy. For cooks with smaller hands, she recommends a petty knife, which is the middle ground between a chef’s knife and a paring knife at around five or six inches long. “It can do a lot of good stuff,” she said.

When purchasing any knife, but especially a chef’s knife, Nguyen’s No. 1 rule is to go to an actual store and hold it. “Hold a lot of different knives and see what feels most comfortable [in] your hand,” she said. “Everyone has that one knife they always reach for when they’re in the kitchen. Make sure that you feel that knife and make sure it is going to be the knife you always reach for, because the chef’s knife is going to be the number one [knife] that you’re always going to use.”

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLOwu8NoaWlqZGR9dnuPbGaeq6Oau7W1wKVkpKGkmLWmuoykpaKulah6qbvMnmScp5%2BgwHA%3D