Last year my H bought me a great knife for cutting vegetables. This year I would like a knife that can cut through chicken bones. I learned the hard way that not all knives are made to cut through bones. Luckily Shun sharpen my knife and got rid of the nicks I had gotten from cutting chicken breasts.
What knife do you like that is good for cutting chicken?
If you mean to cut up whole chickens or chicken parts for cooking, one possibility is a cleaver.
Yes that is what I’m looking for. To cut up chicken parts for cooking.
You could get a breaking or butchering knife if the goal is to break down a whole chicken into parts, separating the chicken at its joints. For removing meat off the bones, a thinner boning knife would work well. If you are talking about actually breaking bones in half through brute force, a cleaver or a large chef’s knife would be the way to go.
As far as brand goes, I’d recommend what most chefs/cooks who work in professional kitchens use and recommend - Victorinox. Nothing flashy to look at but very reasonable. They hold a edge well but are affordable enough to replace when needed, the idea being you don’t want to hold onto a knife past it’s time just because you spent a lot of $$ on it.
I can recommend Global knives.
Basically, we use a heavy meat cleaver as well as a Henckels or Gerber boning knife. The heavy meat cleaver is when we want to cut through the bones. The boning knife is for when I am mainly deboning and cutting through the other parts of the fowl or other carcass.
I use kitchen shears for cutting chickens at the joints. But I also have a cleaver when I need to whack things. The cleaver is small, the other side is for whacking cutlets with a tenderizer for schnitzel.
A Western chef’s knife will work for cutting bones at the joints. For chopping through actual bone, you’d need a cleaver. Western knives are ground at a higher angle and are usually made with a softer more flexible steel so they’re more robust for cutting through hard stuff while at the same time the softer steel bends rather than chipping so a few passes on a steel or knife sharpener will get you good as new.
On the other hand, Shun steel does have a bit of a rep for being brittle (particularly the VG10 steel models, IIRC). Other Japanese brands may have a more flexible steel, or you could look at the more recent American made but Japanese-style chef’s knives, eg the Bob Kramer Henckels which gives you a Japanese cutting angle in a stronger steel.
I’ve got Zwillig Henckle knives. They were a wedding present 40 years ago. They’ll cut anything.Gotta properly sharpen them though.
I believe Cutco knives claim to cut through anything as well, but I have no personal experience trying to cut through bone with anything but a cleaver and generally give H the honors. I prefer to debone if there are bones and not have any bones to cut through.
@mathmom - I have a good pair of shears that I use for cutting boneless chicken. I sent my H the request for a cleaver. We’ve started to eat more chicken breast on the bone as I find it has more flavor. I sometimes cut the breast in half if they are large.
@gouf78 I also have Henkel knives that were a wedding present many eons ago.
You should be able to cut chicken breasts with bones in half with a good chefs knife. We have cutco which are not in the same league as some brand mentioned above. My chefs knife does this just fine.
I don’t own a cleaver.
Repeating what’s been said, but: other than cleaving thigh bones in half, a decent chef’s knife will do the job. A sharp one, with some effort, will cleanly split the backbone of a chicken.
I have a couple that were more expensive, but the one I use everyday is a Messermeister. Might be spelled correctly, might not.
I am new to Victorinox knives. Just purchased two last month and I am very happy. Great price, good quality and very good preformance.
H uses a Global stainless steel meat cleaver that seems to work well. He’s a serious home chef who loves kitchen gadgets and is now semi-retired so he’s spending his nfree time cooking. Earlier this year, he fell in love with a cleaver in Williams Sonoma (Michel Bras). When he saw the price he hesitated and moved on. He mentions that cleaver almost every time he makes chicken stock, so my adult daughters and I decided to buy it for him for Christmas. I’m not sure it’s measurably better than his other cleaver but it is a beautiful cleaver. Plus, it’s “marked down” right now on the Williams Sonoma website.