The 10 Knife Skills Every Chef Needs to Learn

Knife skills are the fastest way to level up your cooking — not fancy recipes, not expensive gear. In this video, we break down 10 essential knife skills every chef uses, so you can cook faster, safer, and with cleaner results at home. We’ve stripped it down to the core cuts and techniques that actually matter in professional kitchens, starting with the simplest “speed cut” chefs rely on daily. You’ll learn the fundamentals behind each move — how to hold the knife safely, how to use a slight sawing motion to let sharpness do the work, and why certain chopping styles can bruise herbs and leave all the flavour on your board instead of in your food. We also cover the techniques that separate home cooking from pro cooking: mincing garlic with salt for maximum flavour without texture, brunoise for precision and uniformity, carving with long smooth slices to keep meat juicy, deboning a chicken leg, and filleting fish using the bones as your guide for a clean, restaurant-level finish. If you want to stop hacking at ingredients and start cutting like a chef, this is the full playbook. Chapters; 00:00 - Intro 00:11 - Tap Chop 01:55 - Rock Chop 04:48 - Mincing 06:19 - Chiffonade 08:14 - Julienne 9:28 - Sharpening 11:20 - Brunoise 13:00 - Dicing 14:57 - Carving 18:05 - Deboning 20:28 - Filleting