Slice Like a Chef: A Guide to Culinary Knife Cuts

One of the first things a student learns in culinary school is how to make classic knife cuts. Cooking times are based on the size of the ingredients after they are cut, and consistent sizes help the ingredients cook evenly. Here’s what you should know about these classic knife cuts, their dimensions, and how they are used in cooking.

Strip cuts: baton, batonnet, and julienne

These knife cuts result in 2 to 3 inch long strips, with the outer perimeter square dimensions varying based on the size of each cut. These cuts are used for French fries, matchstick vegetables used in rice paper rolls, or chives used as a garnish. In fine dining, the square dimensions should be close to perfect. The strips can then be further broken down into perfect cubes to create a dice cut. 

The largest of the group is called a baton, which is a 2- to 3-inch-long strip with a perimeter size of 3/4 square inch. This can be used when preparing thick-cut French fries. From this cut, you will get a large dice.

The next size down is a batonnet. These 2- to 3-inch-long strips have a perimeter size of 1/2 square inch. This is ideal for celery or carrots on a crudité platter or thinner-cut French fries, and produce a medium dice.

The next size down goes by a few different names. Most commonly it’s called julienne or matchstick cut but sometimes, allumette. The 2- to 3-inch-long strip has a perimeter size of 1/4 square inch, often seen in slaws. Cut these further into brunoise.

And finally, the fine julienne is a 2- to 3-inch-long strip with a square perimeter of 1/8 inch. A fine brunoise comes from a fine julienne. Sometimes you’ll see herbs or vegetables cut in this manner as a garnish on top of ramen or other dishes.

Dice and brunoise

A dice is a perfectly square-cut ingredient that comes in a few different sizes. Break down the item into one of the strip cuts first, then line up the strips and cut them crosswise into cubes. 

In fine dining, the dice must be perfect. During culinary training, it’s not uncommon for diced ingredients with slight imperfections to get thrown in the trash. At home, as long as you hit the approximate dimensions mentioned in the ingredient list, you’ll be fine.

A large dice come from cutting the baton into perfect 3/4-inch squares. This cut can be used for roasting vegetables or for French dishes like Pommes Persillade.

A medium dice is one of the most common sizes. It comes from cutting the batonnet into 1/2-inch squares. This is a great cut for stew vegetables or when you want something to be bite-sized. In home cooking, this might also be called “chopped.”.

A small dice comes from the julienne and is 1/4-inch square in size. Small dice can seem fussy but it truly does enhance the beauty of a pico de gallo or simple soup where you’ll see a nice mirepoix or aromatic base in the broth. This cut is also called "finely chopped."

The matchstick or fine julienne cut comes from the brunoise, a tiny 1/8-inch square that you rarely see outside of fine dining. You might see this as a garnish on top of a dish, like very finely chopped cucumber and tomato on top of a gazpacho.

The smallest dice cut is 1/16 square inch or smaller in size and is called fine brunoise, or more commonly, mince cut. Minced garlic or very finely chopped chives are an example of this cut.

Chunky vegetable cuts

Outside the perfectly square cuts of the strip and dice are a few more cuts used for heartier vegetables or more rustic preparations

Rondelle or paysanne cut is deployed for long, round vegetables like carrots or zucchini, and fruits like bananas. Rondelle cuts look like coins. Thinly slice the ingredient crosswise, between 1/8- and 1/2-inch-long slices, depending on what you are preparing.

Paysanne can also be used with non-round vegetables and is considered a rustic cut. Vegetables are thin-cut according to the shape of the ingredient.

To create the diagonal cut, you’ll begin the same way you would with the rondelle, but rotating those same ingredients 45 degrees, then slicing to create the cut.

The tournée is a rarely used in the restaurant world, so if you see it, you should feel like you are being especially taken care of. A tourneé is a technique painstakingly practiced over time. Often used for stew vegetables like potatoes, the vegetable is broken down into approximately 2 inches in length, with 7 evenly spaced sides around the edges. Some have flat tips or pointed tips, but the circumference of the vegetable should be around 3/4 inch. This football-shaped cut can be created with a curved paring knife called a bird’s beak. If you don’t have one, you can also practice this technique with a regular paring knife.

Herb cuts

When chopping herbs, it’s a good practice to be as precise as possible on the first pass. Repeated passes bruise the tender herbs, leaving them wilted. 

The term “rough chop” means there does not need to be perfect edges, and the pieces should be somewhere approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inches in size. This is great for a quick garnish on top of your meal and can be done with almost any tender herb. Remove thyme and rosemary from their woody stems, then rough chop the leaves.

A chiffonade cut is for tender leafy herbs like basil, mint, and parsley. Stack or roll the leaves, then very thinly slice the stack horizontally into thin strands. These thin strands look great as a garnish or add them into a dip.