Being an adult comes with high expectations, like how to cut ingredients with sharp objects and cook for yourself (outside of microwave popcorn). The pressure from that giant knife block your mom gave you can be overwhelming. One of the best ways to start building confidence in your cooking is understanding different knife cuts and trying them out.
This is part of The Grown-Up Kitchen, Skillet’s series designed to answer your most basic culinary questions and fill in any gaps that may be missing in your home chef education.
Not only will it change the presentation of your food, but cutting ingredients into different shapes can change the flavor of the dish, and even signal the best way to eat it.
Julienne
This is one of the more meticulously executed cuts, but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to do. The julienne is shaped like a long thin matchstick (and sometimes referred to as such) with sharp edges. Hard root vegetables or sturdy fruits hold this type of shape best, like beets, apples, potatoes, or carrots.
To make a julienne cut, start by making thin planks (which you can read all about here in our first sharp installment of basic knife cuts). Then cut the plank straight across with parallel strokes to get thin, long rectangles. You can make them any size, but technically speaking, julienned ingredients are rather small, two to three inches long and an eighth of an inch thick.
Because of their dainty stature, julienned ingredients tend to be served raw or quickly fried so they can hold onto their shape. Slow cooking, stewing, or braising break down the structure and you’ll lose the veggies to the sauce. Add julienned beets and carrots to salads, or deep fry julienne potatoes for crispy haystacks.
Chiffonade
One of my favorite cuts is the chiffonade. This cut is incredibly simple to execute and can turn some of the most humble ingredients into a something quite elegant. It’s common to chiffonade leafy greens and wide herbs into a graceful tangle of tumbling strips. Think of it like a bundle of ribbons, except, it’s much easier than making a bundle of curled ribbons.
To chiffonade, roll the leafy vegetable up into a tight tube, like rolling a sleeping bag or a cinnamon roll before you cut it. I like to start at the pointed end of the leaf so it’s in the center and doesn’t flop open easily. Using a sharp knife, to keep bruising to a minimum, cut across the tube’s opening in straight downward strokes. You can chiffonade in thin strips or make the cuts farther apart for wide ribbons. The cuts will come off in large rings at first. Once you’ve finished cutting, pick up a ringlet and shake it out, letting each ribbon fall from your fingertips to separate them, and loosen them up.
Chiffonade mint or basil leaves to top off fruity summer desserts. Cutting them like this will release their powerful aromas more so than leaving them whole. Try and chiffonade the main ingredient of a dish for a dramatic effect, like Swiss chard for an elegant tossed salad.
Here are some basic tools you’ll need to get slicing:
A dependable knife: Henckels 6-inch Classic Chef’s Knife
A good cutting board: Epicurean All-in-one Series
A honing steel to keep your knife sharp: 12-inch carbon steel black knife sharpening steel
Batonnet
Dainty matchsticks and flowing ribbons aren’t for everyone, for those who want their chunky vegetables to stand out, consider the batonnet cut. This cut is similar in shape to the julienne but gigantic in size by comparison. It starts in the same way, with a hearty fruit or vegetable cut into a plank, but instead of trimming them down to an eighth of an inch, you’re technically doubling the size to a quarter inch. I say “technically” because, unless your kitchen is a fine dining establishment, you don’t need to stick precisely to these rules. Hack away to an even bigger size, and if someone gives you trouble, just call them batons.
The batonnet is an excellent shape for crudité platters because the shape, essentially bite-sized sticks, is easy to pluck up with your finger tips. Use the sturdy batonnet cut for lightly roasted vegetables, gentle sautéeing, or casual snacking.
Brunoise
If you haven’t noticed, a lot of these “advanced” knife cuts are basic cuts, like the plank, but with one more slice. A brunoise is no different. The goal of this cut is to make the ingredient look like perfect miniature cubes. You can make differently sized brunoise ingredients by taking the baton, batonnet, or julienne one step further. Simply take any of those cuts, rotate 90 degrees, and cut across to make a cube. Make a large brunoise when you want to hold onto more texture, like in stews or braises. A medium brunoise would make a refined salsa, releasing more flavors, aromas, and natural juices. Use a fine brunoise to unleash the most flavor into a dish, or build a robust sauce.
Rondelle
These next two cuts are some of my favorites and most used. Not because of how cool I feel when I say its fancy name, but because it’s fast, there’s less waste (since you don’t have to make something round look square) and works with the type of food I generally cook. To make a rondelle, slice straight downward, perpendicular to the direction of the fruit or vegetable. Use long, round ingredients like carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, or turnips, and simply slice them into disks a quarter or half-inch thick. I like to rondelle zucchini for stir fries, eggplant for its eponymous parm, and banana for my cold brew overnight oatmeal.
Paysanne
The paysanne cut is more rustic in shape. Like the rondelle, you don’t need to bother with trimming off the round sides to make squared-up edges. This cut showcases the vegetable’s natural irregularities, and therein lies the beauty. Finished paysanne slices will look like a pizza pie that was cut in half or cut into quarters.
To make a paysanne cut, slice the ingredient in half lengthwise. Lay the halves down on their flat side, and slice them in half lengthwise again, so now you have four long quarters. (If you wanted a half-moon paysanne, you could skip the second step.) You can line up the pieces together to be more efficient with your slicing. Turn them 90 degrees, then slice straight downward, perpendicular, across the lengthwise cuts. You can cut them as thin as an eighth of an inch or even a quarter-inch. I like to use a thick paysanne cut for mushrooms in stir fries, or thin paysanne cut carrots in soups.
