There are a lot of specialty kitchen knives out there, but only really three knife block necessities: A chef’s knife for big or messy jobs, a serrated knife for slicing bread or tomatoes, and a good paring knife that can handle kitchen tasks like hulling strawberries, peeling veggies, or slicing cheese.
If you’ve ever tried to build your own knife set, you’ve probably noticed that paring knives are often much cheaper than chef’s knives, which can easily cost hundreds. And as you’ll see below, it’s possible to get a great paring knife for around $20. But that low price often comes with tradeoffs: budget-friendly options tend to be less durable and don’t sharpen as well, meaning you may need to replace them after a few years.
Whether you’re going for a cheap pick or a long-term investment, the key is finding a paring knife that’s nimble and easy to maneuver. If you have smaller hands, that might mean choosing one with a shorter handle. If you’re more experienced, you might prefer a bird’s beak knife for added precision.
We focused on finding versatile paring knives that will work well for a wide range of cooks. Read on for our top picks, and see which ones didn’t quite measure up.
In this article
Best paring knife: Mac Paring Knife
Mac Knife Professional Paring Knife
Pros: High-quality steel great for sharpening, well-balanced
Cons: Expensive for a paring knife
Blade length: 3.25″
Overall length: 7.5″
The paring knife from Japanese brand Mac, which also makes a fantastic chef’s knife, and bread knife, came out on top in all our tests. It’s made of high-carbon steel, which means it is harder and will hold its edge better than a stainless steel blade. We found it easy to be dexterous with this knife; it had a comfortable extension-of-your-hand sort of feeling, which is exactly what you want, according to food director Chris Morocco. There’s a bit more weight to the pakkawood handle than you might expect, especially if you’re used to more inexpensive paring knives, but that weight, combined with the relatively short three-inch blade, makes the knife sturdy without feeling unmanageable. The price of the Mac is higher than lots of other quality paring knives (see our budget choice below), but unlike knives in the $15-$30 range, you can continue to sharpen and resharpen with a whetstone or a pull-through knife sharpener, because of its superior steel quality. Do that and this bad boy will remain a staple kitchen tool for years to come.
What we didn’t like about the Mac paring knife: The price is the only downside to this excellent little knife.
Another great high-end paring knife: Shun Classic 3.5-Inch Paring Knife
Shun Cutlery Classic 3.5-Inch Paring Knife
Pros: Razor sharp, beautiful steel quality
Cons: High price point
Blade length: 3.5″
Overall length: 8″
Shun’s traditional Damascus steel mixes its high-carbon VG-MAX core with a more corrosion-resistant stainless steel for higher performance on the cutting edge while remaining easy to clean and maintain. It neatly peeled apples and hulled strawberries while having enough of a heel to cut and slice hard cheeses. This knife was wicked sharp, but we also really appreciated the rounded pakkawood handle that made it easier to hold. Whether we were gripping it like a traditional paring knife to turn vegetables or holding it like a larger utility knife, the Shun handle was comfortable and gave us excellent control. It was also extremely well balanced, which was important for detail work—with the handle comfortably in our palm, we knew exactly where the blade edge was at all times. One thing we really liked about the knife’s high-quality steel is that it stayed razor-sharp throughout testing—we were able to neatly pluck out each strawberry stem with almost no effort, and even after cutting hard cheese over and over again, it peeled apples beautifully. It is a more expensive paring knife, but for bakers who need to trim, peel, and slice fruit often or for knife enthusiasts, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
What we didn’t like about the Shun Classic paring knife: We feel similarly about the Shun as we do about the Mac, which is to say we found nothing not to like other than the price tag. We put it as an “also great” instead of our top pick because, at the time of writing it costs around 40% more than the Mac does.
Jesse Raub
Best budget paring knife: Opinel Paring Knife
Opinel Essential Paring Knife
Pros: Very affordable, available in lots of nice colors, lightweight
Cons: Not great for heavier jobs like root vegetable work
Blade length: 3.75″
Overall length: 7.6″
The Opinel paring knife has a wonderfully pointy tip, terrific for digging out the stem of a strawberry. It’s incredibly sharp and relatively long blade (almost four inches) is also useful for larger vegetable work; you can even use it to mince a shallot. The knife is also made out of a steel that’s durable enough that you sharpen it some in order to prolong its lifespan. At under $25 at the time of writing that’s a win. Opinel also makes a serrated paring knife that's quite similar to the No.112 (it's the No. 113) if you're looking for something that will help you do things like slicing tomatoes.
What we didn’t like about the Opinel paring knife: Though you can sharpen the blade some, it’s quite narrow compared to the more expensive knives above. That means you will eventually start to eat away at the steel. That's why we recommend buying these knives in a two-pack. This is also a very lightweight knife with a thinner beech wood handle. That may not be disqualifying for you (some people prefer a light knife because they’re easy to maneuver, but it’s something to be aware of.
How we chose the best paring knives
We handled every knife to get a sense of its weight, balance, and handle feel. Then we went on to some (ahem) core paring knife work. We cored ample amounts of sliced strawberries, peeled apples, and cut hard cheese into slices.
What to look for in a paring knife
You’ll see the term ergonomic tossed around a lot in knife reviews. It has a specific meaning, used by folks like the U.S. Department of Labor, centered on fitting tools to human beings. All people generally mean by ergonomic in the context of a kitchen tool, though, is that it’s comfortable to hold. This is particularly important with a paring knife because it is such a short tool—it’s as much handle as it is blade.
You’ll need to make very delicate cuts with a paring knife, whether you're peeling potatoes or segmenting citrus. So a light and balanced knife will help you control that careful knifework.
Again, because it’s so short, you can really utilize the tip of a paring knife for precise cuts like the ones you need to devein shrimp or suprême citrus fruit in a way that’s harder with bigger cutlery. So you want a nice pointy tip.
Other paring knives we tested and liked
Mercer Culinary Genesis Paring Knife
Mercer Culinary Genesis 3.5-Inch Paring Knife
We really liked the Mercer Genesis paring knife’s sharp edge and fine point. It’s also an extremely affordable knife for the quality of its high-carbon stainless steel. Some of our testers liked its oversized, grippy handle, but others thought it made the knife difficult to maneuver. Its pointier design was better for hulling strawberries and peeling apples than slicing on a cutting board, but overall it was a good option for a lot of home cooks.
Wusthof Classic Paring Knife
Wusthof Classic Paring Knife, 3.5-Inch
Wüsthof’s Classic paring knife is sharp, well-made, and high quality. It peeled, sliced, and cut beautifully, and its balance was top-notch. We liked both the MAC and Shun knives slightly better for their blade shape, and their lower prices though. Still, if you’re a fan of classic German knife shapes, this is the one to buy.
Tojiro DP 3.5-inch Paring Knife
Tojiro DP 3.5-inch Paring Knife
Tojiro knives strike a terrific balance between quality and cost. The DP series paring knife had a super sharp blade out of the box, and is one of the more affordable knives that takes well to sharpening. Japanese paring knives are known for their thin blades, though we found the Tojiro’s to be particularly thin as well as longer than some others. We worry about possible chipping more than we do with the Mac, which we thought was its closest comparison in price and style.
Victorinox 3.25 Inch Paring Knife with Straight Edge, Spear Point, Black
Inexpensive and designed for peeling, the Victorinox paring knife made it easy to turn around the apple to peel its skin. Its point wasn’t as sharp as we’d like for coring strawberries, and the skinnier blade made it tricky to cut hard cheese and slice the strawberries. It’s less versatile than other paring knives we tested, but it works well if you’re looking for a specified peeling knife.
The Misen paring knife performed just fine, neatly coring, slicing, and peeling during our tests. We like its angled bolster, which made it easier to pinch near the blade for better handling. Ultimately, it was a good middle-of-the-road option for performance and price, but like its chef’s knife companion, we think there are better options out there.
Paring knives we tested and don't recommend
We liked the slight sheep’s foot tip of Shun’s Kazahana paring knife, but had big issues with the handle. The steel tends to stick out around the edges of the handle scales, and when used for a prolonged period of time, it can irritate your palms. It was sharp and neatly sliced, peeled, and cut, but we think the Shun Classic model is a better knife.
The Farberware 3.5-inch paring knife is an inexpensive option—and it feels like it. The plastic handle is clunky and uncomfortable, and the blade dulled quickly during testing. It struggled to cut through hard cheese and had trouble piercing apple skin while peeling. When hulling strawberries, it even felt a little unsafe due to its lack of precision and control.
The J.A. Henckels Precision Paring Knife was disappointing to use. It looked and felt like a high-end knife until we started to cut. Its point was duller than we expected, and it was tricky to pluck out strawberry stems. It also struggled to peel the apple in thin, consistent strips, and required more force to cut through harder cheese.
The Kuhn Rikon paring knife’s price point was tempting, but ultimately it’s just not sharp enough to perform the necessary paring knife tasks. Paring knives are designed to be held higher up on the spine using your thumb to press food against the blade. Dull paring knives are far more likely to slip in use, which means they’re more dangerous than a sharp one.
The Material paring knife was sleek and attractive, but its handle was heavy compared to the blade. We wish it was better balanced, but we also wish it was sharper out of the box—it took some sawing to slice strawberries and its point didn’t cut out stems as easily as we would have hoped. We did like the grippy coating on the handle, however, and people with strong knife sharpening skills might enjoy this one.
Like the rest of Wüsthof’s Gourmet line, the Wüsthof Gourmet Paring Knife is stamped from a single piece of steel instead of forged. This limits the overall shape to a straighter edge without much curve, and that made this knife tricky to peel with. We also didn’t like how bulky the handle felt compared to other, better-incorporated handles. In terms of sharpness, the Gourmet cut okay, but we just think you’d be better investing in a better knife or picking something cheaper.
The carbon steel core of Shun’s Narukami paring knife was razor-sharp, but it’s also more likely to rust compared to the brand’s other knives we tested (carbon steel always is). We didn’t love the bulky handle scales compared to the Classic’s rounded handles, and with a paring knife, we’re not sure the steel upgrade is worth it. If you’re into high-end knives, however, it performed beautifully in all our tests.
Made In’s paring knife is well-made but clunky. It was by far the heaviest knife we tested, and though its blade was sharp enough, it just wasn’t very comfortable to peel with. We thought the extra weight might help it slice hard cheese, but since most of the weight is in the handle, the knife tended to rotate when it encountered resistance. We liked its build quality overall, but its also a more expensive model that just didn’t perform as well as it should.
The Dalstrong Shogun paring knife is designed with a lot of high-quality signifiers, its full-tang construction for example, but its edge wasn’t as sharp as we’d like it to be. It was also a little bulky and too heavy for peeling. Given its price point, we think you’re better off purchasing the MAC or Shun option.
Additional testing by Jesse Raub
Need to keep growing your toolkit? Check out our favorite chef’s knives, nakiri knives, and bread knife.
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