Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Beatrice Chastka, Food Styling by Kat Boytsova
Other paring knives we tested
Kuhn Rikon Paring Knife
In our original testing, we crowned the Kuhn Rikon paring knife as our most versatile paring knife. The Swiss-made stainless steel blade is inexpensive and easy-to-use, and in one of our rounds, it still held up pretty well. Ultimately, we favored the Zyliss as the best quality budget pick, considering it performed just as well as the Kuhn Rikon, but at a much lower price point. Plus, while the Rikon’s sleek all-black design made it look nice aesthetically, the plastic handle didn’t have the same nice grip the Zyliss has.
Made In Paring Knife
When this beautiful knife arrived we had an inkling it might be all looks. It just seemed too instagrammable. We ate our words after we started using it a bit. Like the J.A. Henckels Classic Precision (see below), it performed similarly to the Mac for around the same price point. If you’re looking for a slightly more aesthetically pleasing paring knife for your kitchen, Made In might be for you. (It also comes in black and olive wood if red isn’t your style.)
Wusthof Gourmet Paring Knife
We ranked the Wüsthof Gourmet Paring Knife as the best knife for delicate tasks in our initial testing, recommending its lightweight and narrow blade for small, precise cuts, like hulling strawberries or scoring fish. It has a super pointy tip, which, in combination with its easy-to-maneuver size, makes it feel like a sharp extension of your arm. It also had a higher finish quality than the Kuhn Rikon. But the two knives we recommend are better all-arounders, excelling at a wider range of paring knife tasks.
Mercer Genesis Paring Knife
The Mercer Genesis paring knife had one of the weightiest handles of the bunch. Encased in a rubbery material, it feels especially firm to grip. It’s a reliable mid-range price knife, and there are certainly worse paring knives you could buy.
Farberware 3.5-Inch Paring Knife
The Farberware 3.5-inch paring knife looked, felt, and performed fairly similar to the Zyliss, right down to the nifty knife sheath. It did lose a bit of control when peeling an apple and it is missing those nice rubber grips we liked so much on the Zyliss.
Zwilling J.A. Henckels Classic Precision Paring Knife
The Zwilling J.A. Henckels Classic Precision paring knife ran neck and neck with the Mac—both hulled strawberries, peeled apples, and cut cheese well, and both knives felt firm yet swift. In the end the Mac beat the Henckels knife by just a hair as the top pick. This is still a worthwhile purchase if you prefer a handle that’s just a bit thinner and a blade that’s a little bit longer than the Mac’s.
Material Paring Knife
The high-carbon steel Material paring knife is sleek, good-looking, and also available in a few color options, making it a good knife to put out for company. It’s extremely light and easy to use, we just wished it was slightly sharper out of the box.
Wusthof Classic Paring Knife
The Wüsthof Classic paring knife, a higher-finish version of the Gourmet line, worked quite well and was very sharp out of the box. We didn’t find it as comfortable to use as the Mac knife, but it would make a good upscale paring knife to have in your collection.
Opinel Parallele Paring Knife
We liked the Opinel Parallele paring knife for its narrow blade and attractive handle. It was good for hulling strawberries and deveining shrimp. We just preferred the finish on the similarly narrow Wüsthof knife—we also found it stayed sharp longer and felt nicer in the hand.
J.A. Henckels Dynamic 4-Inch Paring Knife
The J.A. Henckels Dynamic 4-inch paring knife was another budget pick we tested. While its wide blade performed each task well enough, the handle felt just a bit too cumbersome to hold, enough to make the occasional hulling and peeling feel slightly unwieldy.
Victorinox Paring Knife
The Victorinox paring knife is highly rated elsewhere. We liked this knife, but preferred the Kuhn Rikon’s slightly wider blade and certainly the Zyliss’s more comfortable handle. Also, we found the Victorinox’s light weight verged on flimsy.
Dalstrong Shogun Paring knife
The Dalstrong Shogun paring knife is comfortable to hold, and the full tang connection between the blade and handle is seamless—it felt like a true extension of our hand. If you’re not familiar with the name, it’s one of the top selling knife brands on Amazon. And while that doesn’t necessarily connote quality, when we tested popular Amazon brands, it came out above all the rest of those. We prefer the trusted name of Mac and the lower price though.
Misen Paring Knife
The Misen paring knife was a little too heavy and cumbersome for our needs, which is consistent across the brand’s offerings; we like the Misen chef’s knife as an option for cooks who prefer a heavier German-style knife.
Bulat Paring Knife
The Bulat paring knife was too heavy and bulky to maneuver and had difficulty with delicate tasks like peeling.
Global Classic Paring Knife
The Global Classic paring knife would look impressive on a cheeseboard and felt light in hand, but it didn’t perform as well as similarly pricey knives.
Tojiro Paring Knife
Similar to the Global, the Tojiro was a style over substance situation–a handsome knife that didn’t quite justify its price.
Shun Paring Knife
The Shun Japanese paring knife felt too long for everyday needs and was quite expensive.
Five Two Paring Knife
The Five Two paring knife, from the in-house Food52 brand, is a super cute, small knife available in a variety of colors. It would look good on a cheeseboard, but we found it too heavy and cumbersome for more detailed slicing tasks.
Victorinox Bird’s Beak Paring Knife
In our most recent test we included some bird’s beak paring knives. A bird’s beak knife distinguishes itself from your regular old paring knife with its blade length—a small, super sharp hook that curves into a spear point, much like a, that’s right, bird’s beak. Handles on these can be a little longer and fairly light. Just looking at one inspires visions of precision.
However we would only recommend these for more advanced home cooks. The different design takes a bit of getting used to, especially when doing simple kitchen tasks like slicing cheese. When a bird’s beak really shines is during apple peeling. The characteristic curved sharp edge of the Victorinox Cutlery 2-1/2-Inch bird’s beak paring knife easily found purchase and shaved off swaths of apple skin with ease. With a light, polypropylene, it’s a great budget pick if you want this style of knife.
Mac Knife Chef Series Bird’s Beak
The other bird’s beak we tested was the Mac Knife Chef Series, which performed much the same as the Victorinox—a bit tricky with simple tasks, but peeled apples with ease. The main difference between the Mac Chef Series and the Vitorinox are the handles. Where the Victorinox’s is a polypropylene, the Mac has a more weighty pakkawood handle (and a price tag that’s three times higher). Other than that, the two performed fairly equally.
Additional testing by Kendra Vaculin
Want more knife recommendations? Check out our guides to the best chef’s knives, best bread knives, and best santoku knives.