Most home cooks don’t have a pair of kitchen shears in their toolkit, but they should. For reasons that bewilder me, shears haven’t quiet earned the esteem of a “proper” kitchen tool, like a chef’s knife or a paring knife (unless you ask someone who knows better). But newsflash: Kitchen shears aren’t just for people who are afraid to fumble around with a sharp knife ― they’re an essential part of every chef’s tool bag (in fact, my culinary school-provided knife kit included a pair of kitchen shears, and I still use them every day).
So no, shears aren’t just a poor-man’s knife. They’re useful for a number of tasks, and they come in several different styles: general utilitarian kitchen shears, herb snippers, poultry shears, pizza scissors, seafood shears and more.
General utilitarian shears can be used for everyday tasks that require a little more precision or force than a regular knife can provide, like slicing open the slimy plastic wrapper on a package of raw chicken, cutting through slippery ingredients like bacon or gnawing through tough ingredients like dried apricots. One of my favorite tricks is dipping the shears right into the food you want to cut, avoiding the mess of dumping the food on a cutting board ― hold your shears vertically, and you can chop whole canned tomatoes while they’re still in the can, snip long pasta noodles into kid-friendly cuts while the spaghetti is right on the plate, and cut too-big pieces of lettuce in a salad bowl.
Herb snippers are a feature of many utilitarian kitchen shears ― if you look closely, you’ll see herb-stripper notches that are built into the handle base, allowing you to quickly pull leaves off stems with a flick of the wrist.
Poultry shears are a bit more special, and infinitely more powerful. They’re designed to cut through bone, making it easy to butterfly a chicken or a turkey or break down any cut of meat you bring home. If you want to keep all your fingers intact, trust me ― never try cutting through bones with regular kitchen shears. They’ll slip and slide and could potentially lead to the emergency room. Get a pair of poultry shears instead.
Next up are pizza scissors. Have you ever slid a pizza wheel across your pie, only to drag all the cheese along with it and still not cut through the crust? Then you need pizza scissors. Their long blades are specially designed to cut through slippery mozzarella and chewy crusts, and some of them even feature a wedge that lifts the slice out of the box for you. And FYI, chefs in Rome use scissors for pizza al taglio, or “by the cut” pizza.
Seafood scissors are even more specific, and essential if you prepare a lot of crab, crayfish, lobster or shrimp at home. These special shears are extra durable and sharp to crack and cut through shells, and the curved blade allows you to insert the tip under the shell to pry out the meat.
If you haven’t yet discovered the life-changing powers of a good pair of kitchen shears, do yourself a favor and grab one (or more) of the pairs below. You can thank us later.
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