The Best Bread Knives of 2024, Tested & Reviewed

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Dozens of baguettes and sourdough boules later, we found the best blades for slicing bread.

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Food & Wine / Jeanne Clayton

Whether you regularly buy your loaves of bread from an exceptional artisan bakery, you're an aspiring sourdough bread baker, or you've been baking for years and have an extensive bread cloche collection, a distinctive bread knife is essential. Slicing bread can get tiring, especially with a dull blade that can't handle tough crust. The best bread knives easily slice loaves, bagels, and delicate produce. The sharp serrations can turn fresh summer tomatoes into even slices without tearing the skin or destroying the fruit.

If you want to upgrade your bread-baking tools or expand your flourishing knife collection, a nice bread knife is a great choice. "I find a 7-to-9-inch blade will handle most breads," says Gerry Klaskala, chef and owner of Aria in Atlanta. But "if your preference is huge loaves of bread, you're going to need a longer blade." After testing 20 knives and consulting with our culinary experts, we chose a long list of candidates for the best bread knives and thoroughly tested them.

The knife's classic design and unique serration pattern make slicing through any bread a joy.

It's rather expensive for a simple bread knife.

Zwilling is a classic German kitchen brand for good reason, and you'll find its blades on many of our lists of the best knife sets. The Pro series bread knife is significantly sized, and its unique serrations — a mix of pointed teeth and rounded waves — made easy work of all our tests. We got clean, even slices of baguette and sourdough boule, and the blade cut through tomato like whipped butter. This is seriously one of the best kitchen knives we've ever encountered.

The plastic and metal handle is comfortable to grip hard, which is a plus when slicing crustier loaves of bread. Zwilling even says it's dishwasher-safe, though we had no trouble hand-washing and generally avoid putting knives in the dishwasher. The only real negative is the price, which is pretty high considering its fairly basic looks.

Blade Length: 9 inches | Blade Material: Stainless steel | Total Length: 14.17 inches | Handle Material: Plastic

This reasonably priced knife cuts as well as others two and three times its cost.

The short blade makes high-volume slicing more labor-intensive.

The Misen is a well-made knife with a quality handle and sharp blade, and it's available for well under a hundred bucks, which none of the others on this list can say. The serrations have a subtle curve between teeth, ensuring you won't tear denser loaves or delicate produce as you slice. That played out in testing, where we got even slices of tomato and both test breads. Another bonus is that you can get this knife with a black, white, red, or blue handle, to add a little pop of color to your kitchen (if you want it.)

Our complaint about the Misen is that it's not long enough. It's only an inch shorter than the Zwilling, but we could feel that extra effort while sawing through a big, crusty sourdough boule.

Blade Length: 8 inches | Blade Material: Carbon steel | Total Length: 13.75 inches | Handle Material: Plastic

This beautiful all-stainless-steel knife has a narrow profile to make ultra-thin slices possible.

It's quite pricey.

The Global brand is known among home cooks and professional chefs for its high-end design made entirely from stainless steel, handle included. The Sai Bread Knife's grip is a benchmark for ergonomics and is comfortable to hold with its thumb rest, no matter your hand size. Plus, there are no rivets or joints between the blade and handle that you'll ever have to scrub out.

The knife's hand-hammered blade is incredibly sharp right out of the box, and we were impressed with how thin it is. We achieved paper-thin tomato slices without tearing or sticking to the side. It's pretty pricey, but the Global is the knife for those who want to impress dinner guests crowding around your kitchen island, or the perfect housewarming or wedding gift for a dedicated bread baker.

Blade Length: 9 inches | Blade Material: Stainless steel | Handle Material: Stainless steel

With a stunning blade, smooth handle, and extra-hard steel, this knife looks great and slices wonderfully.

The carbon steel in this knife is more prone to rusting than stainless and needs careful attention when washing.

The Miyabi Kaizen bread knife offers all the beauty and craftsmanship that makes Japanese knives famous the world over. The ornamental swirling pattern on the blade comes from layers of carefully folded steel, and the perfectly smooth oval handle is comfortable for both lefties and righties. It's made of ultra-hard carbon steel that made short work of bread and tomato in testing and could also handle more intense ingredients like butternut or other hard squash.

The disadvantage of the steel used in this and many other Japanese knives is that it's a little more finicky than stainless. You'll want to make sure you dry the blade thoroughly right after washing to avoid rust spots. And be careful while you're drying! This thing is sharp.

Blade Length: 9.5 inches | Blade Material: Carbon steel | Total Length: 14.41 inches | Handle Material: Micarta

The knife is sleek and well-designed in both looks and functionality.

The blade is rather short, and the offset shape isn't for everybody.

A repeat winner from our last round of tests, this Shun bread knife has its blade positioned lower than the handle. The offset design keeps the "knuckles clear of the cutting board," says chef Suzanne Lane of Aster Hall in Chicago. It's a good choice to keep from messing up the frosting and decorations on cakes and other delicate pastries, and it's also a good way to create very uniform slices of crusty or soft breads. We loved the feel of the handle in testing; it's comfortable to hold, and the asymmetrical outline adds stability against twisting. Like products from many Japanese kitchen brands, it looks super sleek and high quality, to boot.

On the downside, the offset bread knife is a rather specialized tool. You have to hold it a little differently than a normal knife, and it's less useful for general non-bread slicing. Plus, Shun's model is pretty short, at only 8.25 inches. It's a great choice for a patissier, aspiring or professional.

Blade Length: 8.25 inches | Blade Material: Carbon steel | Total Length: 12.2 inches | Handle Material: Pakkawood

The inexpensive knife makes clean and consistent cuts with large loaves or other oversized items.

It can be awkward to maneuver, and the shallow serrations don't do as well with crusty (or stale) bread.

Tojiro's knife could be an excellent choice for someone who makes loaf after loaf of homemade sandwich bread and wants quick, even slices every day. It's 10.6 inches long, able to get through a full loaf in fewer strokes and with less effort than less substantial blades. That length is also an advantage with oversized fruits and vegetables; it'll make short work of peeling a pineapple or breaking down a watermelon. And we love the price: We did not expect such a sharp knife at such a low cost.

However, an extra-long bread knife may not be everybody's preference. It can be awkward to control and make less accurate slices, especially when you're trying to make detailed cuts. The serration shape, with shallow waves, also seemed to be less effective at breaking through hard crust than others. That makes it more apt to slip, so be careful with baguettes (or anything that's gone a little stale) by keeping your off hand well away from the knife.

Blade Length: 10.6 inches | Blade Material: Molybdenum vanadium steel | Total Length: 16.1 inches | Handle Material: Wood

There are so many gorgeous and high-performing bread knives on the market it can be overwhelming, but we've sliced through countless baguettes to award the best bread knife overall to the Zwilling Pro 9-inch Bread Knife. It's a razor-sharp blade with special serrations that make it effective for slicing bread and more delicate fruits and vegetables.

Food & Wine / Russell Kilgore

We evaluated 20 bread knives for this roundup, evaluating design, results, and general feel as we put them through three separate head-to-head tests.

Food & Wine / Cameron Beall

We kept the retail prices of the knives a secret until after completing our performance tests. Only then did we reveal the costs and compare them to each other, the overall range, and the average.

8-inch Hexclad Damascus Steel Serrated Bread Knife: We’ve tested Hexclad’s Master Series knife set and didn’t love the hexagonal handle shape for ergonomic purposes, so we’re looking at the bread knife in the brand’s second set for consideration. Its blade is slightly shorter than other bread knives we’ve tried but it gives the knife a little more leverage and control for crusty sourdoughs and thicker French loaves. Time will tell if it competes with our favorites on our list.

The longer the blade, the more bread you can get through with each slice. A long bread knife also tends to make cleaner cuts, as you're more apt to tear whatever you're working on when you reposition the knife. If you buy larger artisanal loaves, wide bâtards, or boules — or even bake your loaves in a bread machine — you'll want a longer blade to deal with those bigger loaves effectively. The tradeoff with a longer knife is that you'll have less control and can have trouble making thin, even slices. Nine inches is roughly average, but there's no best length for every person; it all depends on your preferences.

For super-accurate, super-thin slices, you want a bread knife with a fairly thin blade. This often means that the blade can flex a little bit; if you press the tip into your cutting board, it'll bend slightly. If you're looking for a lot of control, this is the kind of knife you should look for. But you want a thicker, more substantial blade if you plan to cut dense, hearty breads — or hard fruits and vegetables.

Almost all bread knives are serrated, but the shape of the serrations makes a difference in performance. If you work with lots of crusty hearth-style breads, you may want a knife with sharp, pointed teeth. These help break through the hard surface and maintain a hold on the crust without slipping, but they can tear through soft and tender milk bread or buttery pastries. Rounded teeth work gently to make smooth slices with less damage to the crumb, but they can slide around on the surface of the crust before they "bite" in and start cutting. Serrated blades are generally more difficult to sharpen at home than straight ones, but scalloped teeth are easier to maintain in the long term than pointy ones, which need to be sharpened professionally.

"Bread knives do require sharpening" says Anthony Contrino, a culinary producer, food stylist, and the host of Saucy on Peacock. "However, not nearly as often as a paring or chef knife would when used properly." A good professional sharpening once a year should keep most bread knives in good working order. If you use yours heavily, you want want to increase that to every six months.

"Bread knives are serrated so that the teeth when used in a sawing motion, can cut through items that have a firm or crusty exterior without crushing or damaging a usually softer interior," Contrino says. On hard-crusted breads, a straight knife can slip dangerously, and on soft ones, it can mash and flatten the light, delicate crumb.

Don't leave that bread knife just for bread, says Contrino. "Serrated knives are great for slicing through delicate fruits like tomatoes and grapes, cutting a cake into layers, and even chopping chocolate."

Shun Classic Bread Knife ($170 on Amazon)

This knife is gorgeous and works well, but it can't really justify its high price. The offset Shun featured above has a unique design that makes it different from most of the other bread knives out there, while this one is just fairly standard.

Zwilling Kramer Euroline Stainless Damascus Collection 10-inch Bread Knife ($440 on Zwilling.com)

We loved using and looking at this gorgeous knife. However, it's triple the price of the Zwilling Pro we named our best overall, and it had more trouble with tomatoes.

Suncraft Seseragi Bread Knife ($108 on Milk Street)

This knife sliced wonderfully in all three tests, with a unique design that has a short straight section at the tip and two serration shapes along the rest of the blade you can use for different foods. What we didn't like is the short handle, which is awkward to hold, especially if you have larger hands.

Five Two Essential 9-inch Serrated Knife ($49 on Food52)

This exceptionally inexpensive knife performed well across our slicing tests; its blade is so sharp that it sliced of bits of sponge while we washed it. It's an excellent choice, but we gave the edge for best value to the Misen because the Five Two handle can hold onto grease and food bits and needs more scrubbing.

Tojiro Bread Slicer ($38 on Amazon)

At half the price of the Tojiro F-687 above, this knife is significantly lighter and less sharp. It took a lot of sawing to get through the bottom crust of the boule, and we'd say the other, sharper, heavier model is a better deal.

Bread knives that didn't do well in our tests failed for a lot of different reasons. A few were bulky, heavy, and uncomfortable to hold, while others simply weren't sharp enough and smashed or tore the bread as we tried to slice it. Balance was also a factor: If the long blade weighs more than the handle, it's difficult to hold the knife straight to make even cuts. Notable brands we tested that don't appear above include Wüsthof, Made In, Dexter-Russell, and Victorinox.

Jennifer Zyman is a testing editor for Food & Wine and a recovering restaurant critic with a culinary school degree and over 15 years of food writing experience. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Magazine, Bon Appetit, Eater Atlanta, The Kitchn, Local Palate, National Geographic, Southern Living, and Thrillist.