A bread knife, namely a serrated knife, does a fantastic job cutting bread — one that no other knife can. Thanks to the sawed design, these blades can cut through the tough crust and soft insides without turning them into mush.
But you’d be mistaken to believe its uses are limited to that. You’re wasting its potential if you’re not using that long, toothy blade for other foods.
Serrated knives can work with a host of different ingredients — from desserts to vegetables alike. So, let’s take the time to determine which foods can benefit from this unique design and how you can make the most out of it.
What Makes Bread Knives Special?
Most people don’t utilize serrated knives because they don’t understand their anatomy.
Bread knives or serrated knives come with multiple scallops (also known as gullets), dissecting which are saw-like teeth. The outer teeth are pretty pointy, but they’re not doing the cutting. Instead, these edges mainly create serrations in the food.
Behind the saw-like teeth, there are sharpened edges. In most bread knives, the blade is a single bevel, which is sharpened only from one side while the other remains flat.
Once the outer edges get you past the bread’s crust, the sharpened steel creates the cut as you slice it. These knives are essentially tiny saws!
So, what’s the benefit of this design over a knife with a straight blade?
Serrated Knives vs. Straight Knives
With a straight blade, you have to push it down on the food to some extent for it to start cutting. That causes trouble if the ingredients are too tough or squishy.
Think of cutting bread with a chef’s knife. You’ll most certainly have to push the blade down, resulting in tears and crumbs along the way. An extremely sharp knife would create better results, but it still wouldn’t be flawless.
You can avoid ruining softer ingredients by pushing them using a bread knife. It emulates cutting elements sideways and creates clean cuts by reducing vertical pressure.
Remember that sharper teeth on a bread knife’s edge can cut quicker, but they may result in more crumbs. The trick is to find a balance.
Alternative Uses of Bread Knives
- Desserts and Sweets
When I think of soft and squishy foods, desserts and sweets are the first things that come to mind.
Even a sharp straight-edged knife can turn the icing into mush when applying pressure. You can easily cut through pastries or an ice cream sandwich with a bread knife without smushing them.
Cutting blocks of baking chocolate is another name for creating a mess. Using a serrated knife to cut it in a sawing motion can prevent broken chunks.
With serrations, cutting the ingredient into smaller chunks (for chocolate chips, for instance) is a lot of work.
Another benefit of these knives is the length. The chances are that your bread knife is longer than the chef’s knife. This is exceptionally helpful when cutting large cakes horizontally or leveling them off. The large blade allows you to cover the whole cake at once, creating uniform results.
And since these knives don’t require as much vertical pressure, you can maintain superior consistency.
- Vegetables
Veggies are probably not what you imagined cutting with a bread knife, but it has their uses.
Imagine cutting a large squash or melon with a chef’s knife. You need to put a lot of pressure, risk the knife’s edge becoming dull, and sometimes even end up having the knife stuck in the vegetables’ tough rind.
If you’re unlucky, putting that much force can result in slipping and accidentally cutting yourself or ruining the knife’s edge.
Using a bread knife can help with that. Since it cuts in a sawing motion, the chances of the blade getting stuck are low. And even if it does, removing it is far more manageable. This sawing motion also requires less force from your end.
Just cut off the top and the blossom end. You’ll now have a flat surface to rest the ingredient on. Then, you can remove the rind from the sides in a back-and-forth motion.
Another compatible ingredient would be pineapple. It has a tough outer layer, and cutting the eyes with a chef’s knife is risky and tedious. You can use a bread knife to cut the hard layers instead.
Tomatoes are another Achilles’ heel for straight-edged knives. Unless your chef knife is incredibly sharp, you can end up squishing the fruit and creating a mess. Furthermore, making thin, clean slices is easier if the knife is in tip-top shape.
A bread knife creates serrations in its outer layer and softly cuts it without smushing it.
- Fruits
Many citrus fruits have a comparatively rigid outer layer followed by soft flesh inside.
Think of a grapefruit. We must put a bit of weight on the knife to get through the first layer. That often squeezes the juice out and fails to create a clean slice. The edges may seem slightly more jagged than a sharp straight blade, but the trade-off is undoubtedly worthwhile.
A bread knife can go past the initial layer without pushing down, resulting in a beautiful, mess-free cut. The same principle applies to other fruits like peaches and oranges.
Creating smaller bite-sized pieces (e.g., dicings) is also easier to cut with a bread knife, which turns into a disaster with usual knives unless they’re extremely sharp.
Cutting Meat with A Bread Knife?
A serrated edge is an excellent way to cut meat, especially if the meat has tough bones. However, cutting meat with your bread knife is usually a bad idea.
While there are serrated knives that can cut steak, those are quite different from the usual bread knives. Cutting meat with your bread knife can firstly tear the meat instead of creating a clean cut. Sometimes, it may even fail to cut through without applying a bit of force.
Steak knives made for meat come with tougher edges, which a bread knife usually needs to be improved. That means you might dull your knife’s edge by cutting meat with it, and sharpening serrated knives can already be a chore.
Therefore, I recommend using a proper utility knife or a carving knife to work on your meat.
My Last Words!
We have a few more unexpected uses for a bread knife. A serrated knife may not be applicable everywhere, but knowing the various ways to use a bread knife can save a lot of headaches (and messy countertops).
Reference:
- https://www.thekitchn.com/5-ways-to-use-your-serrated-kn-95250
- https://blog.hdmdknives.com/bread-knife-uses.html