A chef’s knife is probably the single most-used kitchen tool of all time. Air fryers and Instant Pots will come and go; you may rotate between stainless steel, nonstick, and cast-iron cookware on any given night, but cooking starts with chopping ingredients, no matter what you’re making or where you’re making it. Still, just because something is a kitchen workhorse doesn’t mean you can automatically justify shelling out major money for it.
Our favorite inexpensive chef’s knives
- The best budget chef’s knife overall: Mercer Culinary Renaissance 8" Chef’s Knife, $52
- A lightweight champ: Victorinox Swiss Classic 8" Chef’s Knife, $60
- Great for small hands: Global Chef's Knife, 7" Blade, Japanese Stainless Steel, $100
Knife pricing is undoubtedly confusing. It’s possible to find Damascus steel knives with hand-carved wooden handles for upwards of a thousand dollars. Meanwhile, Amazon is full of unheard-of brands hawking nice-looking Japanese-style knives for $20–$30, and trendy budget direct-to-consumer brands offer seemingly high-quality steel knives for just $50. What’s the actual right amount to spend? Where does your dollar stop benefiting you in terms of performance and contribute purely to aesthetics?
While our favorite knives from our years of testing tend to run in the $150-$200 range, we’ve found a few knives under $100 that punch way above their weight. You’ll find our recommendations for inexpensive—but definitely not cheap—chef’s knives below, along with some guidelines about what your money is actually paying for when it comes to knife quality.
- The best inexpensive chef’s knife: Mercer Culinary Renaissance
- A lightweight champ: Victorinox Swiss Classic
- Great for small hands: Global Chef's Knife
- What we looked for in cheap chef’s knives
- What’s the difference between inexpensive and expensive knives?
- Other knives we liked
- Knives we don't recommend
- How do I maintain an inexpensive knife?
What counts as a cheap chef’s knife?
The knives featured below all cost less than $100. That price has the advantage of being a nice, round number, but it also brings in several recommendations that all met important quality standards: higher quality metal and with an edge they kept through rounds of rigorous testing.
The best inexpensive chef’s knife: Mercer Culinary Renaissance 8" Chef’s Knife
What we love: The Mercer Culinary Renaissance feels extremely well-made given its sub-$60 price, and the brand frequently shows up in kits for newbies at culinary school. During testing, the knife felt balanced in our hands, making comfortable, precise work of chopping tough vegetables like sweet potatoes and butternut squash. We also repeatedly went back to measure how the knife kept its edge during our testing by slicing through sheets of paper and by maintaining its paper-slicing ability after repeated rounds of chopping produce.
What we’d leave: This knife features a lower steel quality than pricier knives like The Mac Professional Series Chef’s Knife, which means it will need more frequent sharpening. It’s also heavier, and while some cooks prefer the leverage a heavier knife offers, it’s less suited to delicate, precision knife work.
A lightweight champ: Victorinox Swiss Classic 8" Chef’s Knife
What we love: A former budget favorite, the Victorinox is used regularly in the BA test kitchen during recipe development. Though it’s sharp, this is a visibly unprecious knife—and if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s nice to own a knife you might throw in the dishwasher, which we have on occasion (this will make it go duller faster, FYI). This knife is sharp out of the box, and we also know from years of using them in our home and test kitchen spaces that they sharpen well. It’s also lightweight, making it a favorite for more delicate knife work.
What we’d leave: There’s no way around the fact that this looks pretty cheap. The knife is not full-tang, and its handle is made of nonslip plastic. If we were choosing one inexpensive chef’s knife to rule them all, the Mercer option above is a similar price, made of higher-quality materials, and has full-tang construction, so it would win out every time. However, we think there’s value in having a supplemental chef’s knife that you can really rely on without having to baby it or worry about care. And if you’re looking for just that, this is a great option to have in the drawer on those days when more than one person might be working in the kitchen—and probably one that you’ll find yourself reaching for as much, or more, than your other knives thanks to its comfortable handle and light weight. It’s the knife you’ll pack to take on a picnic, or to your Airbnb.
Great for small hands: Global Chef's Knife, 7" Blade, Japanese Stainless Steel
What we love: One of our former food editors swears by this knife, which is comfortable to hold and balanced, thanks to a clever design feature: Rather than full tang construction, the seamless metal knife features a hollow handle that is filled with sand to balance its weight with the blade. The perfect weight distribution actually contributes to a lighter-feeling knife. It’s made of high-quality steel, passed all of our sharpness and durability tests with aplomb, and, for a while, held a top spot in our best knife review. The 8-inch version of this knife usually retails around $150, but the 7-inch is under $100. While we typically recommend an 8-inch chef’s knife, the 7-inch knife works well for cooks with small hands—and this knife is actually generally better-suited to those cooks, which we’ll get into below.
What we’d leave: People with large hands had issues gripping the metal handle, which can get slippery. If you’re prone to cleaning as you go, make sure to dry your hands between rinsing dishes and getting back into chopping.
What we looked for in cheap chef’s knives
Our criteria for a budget chef’s knife are the same as they are for a knife at any price point. During our testing, we looked at the following criteria:
Sharpness
We looked for a sharp blade right out of the box. But also, as we put the knives through their paces, we looked at edge retention. Between chopping veggies—delicate produce like tomatoes, as well as tough produce like butternut squash—our testers intermittently sliced through paper, looking for a clean slice that indicated the knife hadn’t quickly dulled.
Construction
A budget-friendly knife might not be as beautifully constructed as its more expensive counterparts, but it should be made of hard and non-corrosive steel and feel sturdy and balanced in hand.
Comfort
Our favorite chef’s knives had comfortable, easy-to-grip handles that offered even weight distribution between the blade and the handle.
What’s the difference between inexpensive and expensive chef’s knives?
What exactly are you paying for when you buy a $300 chef’s knife, compared to a $50 one? We have a detailed guide that breaks down each element that contributes to a higher knife cost, but here’s a quick overview of cost drivers:
Steel quality
There are two main attributes you want in the steel of an everyday knife: hardness and corrosion resistance. Unfortunately, they can work against one another because the elements in steel that make it corrosion resistant, like chromium, also make it softer. The carbon content in a steel is what makes it hard, and a harder blade, higher in carbon, holds its edge better. The trick is to find a balance. Some high-end knife companies go to the trouble of developing proprietary steel blends, but even there are some good mass market steels used by budget brands as well. All the knives we recommend are made of high-carbon stainless steel steel, designed to have that balance between rust resistance and edge durability.
Handle balance
You’ll see the term “full tang” thrown around a lot in this review. This refers to a knife-making technique where the metal forged for the blade extends all the way back through the center of the knife’s handle. Scales (the wood or plastic pieces you actually grip) can then be attached to that metal spine. Full-tang knives are more balanced. Balance matters in a knife because you don’t want a heavy blade tilting your knife forward as you chop. A full tang knife is also more durable because the blade can’t separate from the handle (definitely something that can happen to cheap knives). Of course, this means that more forged metal—the thing we just discussed as being expensive—is required to make the knife. Naturally, full-tang knives tend to be priced higher.
It should be noted that not all balanced knives are full tang (like the Global knife we recommend here) nor are all full tang knives meaningfully more expensive than partial tang knives.
Finish quality
Steel quality and handle construction will have the biggest impact on the performance and longevity of a knife, but the finish quality will play a role in the price too. Expensive knives often have design features like beautiful wooden handles and elegant metal forging patterns—Damascus steel knives are a good example of that. Inexpensive knives might have utilitarian-looking blades and plastic handles, though we think there are some nice looking options among our budget picks.
Other inexpensive chef’s knives we liked
Misen Chef’s Knife
This knife strikes a balance between the curved blades typical of Western-style chef’s knives and the straight blades associated with Japanese knifemaking. We liked that balance, finding the knife easy to maneuver for both delicate and tough chopping tasks. It didn’t hold its edge as well as the picks we prefer above, but it’s a great affordable option if you have an at-home sharpener you don’t mind pulling out every so often.
Our Place Everyday Chef’s Knife
This is a nicely-balanced full-tang knife. If you prefer a Western-style knife with a pronounced belly for a rocking motion as you slice, this is your knife. We only docked it for one design feature: a dent in the handle encourages you to choke up on the knife near the bolster, but it’s uncomfortable for larger hands.
Quince Essential Japanese Damascus Steel 8" Chef’s Knife
If you’re looking for an under $100 knife with a hammered, Damascus pattern, this option from Quince is sliced well—it’s sharp out of the box and features full-tang construction.
Cheap chef’s knives we don't recommend
This knife didn’t feel balanced in our hands, and while its light weight made it adept at delicate slicing tasks, it struggled to handle chopping hearty root vegetables. The materials also felt cheap, which makes sense since it costs a remarkable $39 at the time of writing.
This sturdy knife feels hefty and powerful in your hand, but it actually struggled to cut tougher vegetables—and the handle isn’t comfortable
This knife had a surprising number of problems given that it comes from a legendary knifemaker that we generally trust for heavier, Western-style designs. The Wusthof Gourmet is stamped, not forged, which means its sharp edge is more vulnerable. It lacked balance, and doesn’t have a bolster, which makes a knife in this heftier style harder to grip. But most importantly, it just didn’t cut well, struggling in both the paper and produce tests.
This sturdy knife performed fine in testing, but knives that cost 30-40% less, perform as well or better.
At just $20 at the time of writing, this knife, from the makers of our winning inexpensive model, is by far the cheapest knife we tested. It’s duller than its slightly more expensive counterpoint out of the box, and has an uncomfortable-to-hold handle.
We found this knife too lightweight. And if we thought the Global knife struggled with slipperiness, this metal-handled model (though sleek-looking) doesn’t even have any grippy perforations on the handle to attempt to prevent your hand from sliding.
While Quince’s take on a Japanese-style knife impressed us in testing, this German counterpart falls short. It was too dull to perform when slicing through squishy, juicy tomatoes.
How do I maintain an inexpensive knife?
The best way to save money is to keep the same chef’s knife for as long as possible. So if you don't to replace one of the knives here on the regular, you should care for it the same way you'd care for a pricier knife:
Store properly: Never let your knives hang out loose in a drawer—they’ll bump around and against one another, sacrificing their edge. Our preferred storage method is a magnetic knife block, because it keeps the knives accessible but also out of harms’ way. We also like these sheaths, which allow you to keep them in a drawer, protected:
Hand wash and dry immediately: To prevent corrosion and food buildup, wash your knives right after you use them with warm, soapy water. Use a soft sponge to prevent scratching and dry with a dish towel immediately rather than letting it hang out on the dish rack. While we’ve been as guilty as the next guy of throwing an inexpensive chef’s knife in the dishwasher, this does make them dull faster, meaning more sharpening required and therefore a shorter knife lifespan. Save it for that rare night when you truly can’t be bothered.
Hone before and after using your knife: Honing your knife helps it keep its edge between sharpening sessions.
Use a high-quality cutting board: Wood, bamboo, and rubber cutting boards will all protect your knife and prevent it from going dull too quickly. Read our review of the best cutting boards.