Do you own a pair of kitchen shears? These tools are essential n the kitchens of many cooks, who depend on them for many everyday cooking tasks. From cutting meats like fish and poultry to dicing vegetables to finely mincing herbs, there are a ton of useful things kitchen shears can do.
Let’s explore what kitchen shears are used for so you can get the most out of this amazing tool! We’ll also walk you through some of the most common tasks people like to perform with shears to get you cooking like a real pro. Let’s get started!
What Are Kitchen Shears?
Before we dive into the amazing things these tools can do, let’s refresh ourselves on what exactly kitchen shears are. We offer more in-depth information on what classifies a kitchen shear in our kitchen shears buying guide. Here, we’ll stick to the basics.
Kitchen shears are scissors designed for use with food, defined by their distinct, unattached blades and increased cutting strength. Kitchen shears have a distinctly strong joint where their two separate blades meet. This joint is what offers the force and power that make these a great kitchen tool.
Kitchen shears are strong enough to do more than simple snipping. They can cut through meats and bones with ease, even cutting whole chickens if needed! Their blades are sharp and often serrated, offering grip when cutting wet, slippery, oily foods that they often face in the kitchen.
Kitchen shears are also characterized by their two separate blades, which allow users to easily clean and sharpen them, ensuring that they can last a lifetime in a person’s cooking toolkit.
What Do Kitchen Shears Do?
When cooking in the kitchen, sometimes you need a tool that can get the job done fast. Thankfully, kitchen shears are pretty adept at doing things with speed and can accomplish many different chopping tasks in the process. There are tons of amazing things kitchen shears can do, making them a versatile choice for a kitchen utensil.
Cutting Herbs & Greens
Cutting herbs and greenery is the most common use for kitchen shears, as they can snip with ease! If you need to cut a lot of delicate herbs in a short amount of time, kitchen shears are the tool for the job. You can bunch up your herbs and snip away like you’re making confetti straight into the bowl. Easy as pie.
The same goes for other greens, like lettuce, kale, spinach, or bok choy. Leafy vegetables are no match for these tough scissors.
Cutting Vegetables
Kitchen shears are also useful for cutting up vegetables! While they may not be graceful at larger vegetables, like potatoes or squash, they are great for vegetables of the skinnier variety.
Need to trim the ends off of green beans? Cut broccoli from the stalk? Chop up some asparagus? No problem! Kitchen shears can make quick work of dicing these kinds of vegetables up.
Cutting Meats
People may not think it’s possible, but it’s true! Kitchen shears are great for cutting up meat. They can easily cut smaller, boneless meats like chicken breasts, but they’re also great for whole chickens. Thanks to their tough durability, they’re favored among cooks looking to quickly carve raw poultry.
Cracking Nuts and Shells
Not all kitchen shears come equipped with crackers and bottle openers, but the ones that do are great for cracking open tough nuts! No more digging in the drawer for a nutcracker when opening chestnuts or finding fancy tools to de-shell crab and lobster. Your shears are the only tool you need.
Doughs and Pastries
If you work in pie making, kitchen shears can help you cut dough with precision! Use your kitchen shears to cut long thin strips of dough for a lattice top or to trim along the top of a pie crust.
How to Cut a Chicken with Kitchen Shears
With most kitchen shear techniques, it’s as easy as simply gathering up your ingredients and chopping them up, the same way you would use a pair of scissors. However, one of the more common uses for shears, cutting poultry, can be intimidating to try without the proper know-how.
If you follow this guide, cutting poultry won’t be so scary to try! Here’s how to cut a whole chicken using kitchen shears.
Step One: Cut Off the Wings
The first thing you’ll want to remove from the chickens is the two wings! To do this, cut the skin between the wing joint and the body. Grab the chicken bone and bend until you hear the joint snap out of the socket. Then, snip at the joint to remove the wing.
Step Two: Remove the Legs and Thighs
Next, grasp the chicken drumstick by its end, and lift it until you hear the joint pop. Once you hear it pop, begin to cut off the drumstick and thigh from the chicken’s body.
Step Three: Removing the Spine
Next, it’s time to remove the backbone. Stand the chicken upwards, so its neck is down on the cutting board. Find the bone notch along the edge of the spine, by the ribs, and cut alongside it. Repeat on the other side, and remove.
You can throw away the spine or save it! Chicken bones are great for broth and stocks.
Step Four: Cutting the Breasts
Finally, you’ll want to put the chicken right side up and cut down the middle of the chicken between the two breasts. You may need to cut along this line twice. Once you make a clean cut, separate the two breasts. And you’re done! You have successfully carved a raw chicken.
