Key Equipment for Successful Butchery
Stock up on essential equipment for easy meat butchery at home.
Meat cookery requires the same arsenal of equipment that you’d use for other savory cooking. We’ve outlined our picks for high-quality tools for butchering and preparing meat - tasks that can become difficult with inadequate equipment.
Chef's Knife
An 8-inch chef’s knife is the workhorse of the kitchen, and is great for breaking large roasts down into stew meat, or cutting items like beef or pork tenderloin into smaller filets or medallions. We also use the chef’s knife to butterfly roasts, or to filet thicker cuts into two equal sized and thinner pieces.
Boning Knife
Although you can get away with not owning a boning knife (the paring knife makes a fine substitute), the long, flexible blade of a boning knife is built for nimbly cutting around intricate bone and muscle areas of meat. We also use the boning knife for removing silver skin in order to minimize waste.
Paring Knife
Although the name infers that this knife is suited for preparing produce, it is a useful tool to use for home butchery. The small, thin blade is excellent for trimming away surface fat, as well as removing the silver skin from meat. It can get into tight areas of large roasts to remove hard knobs of fat without slicing away too much meat. And it is great for beginning to slice away the membrane from a rack of ribs.
Meat Cleaver
Meat cleavers can look intimidating, but we find that they are an important addition to the home kitchen, particularly when chopping meat and bones for stock. A good meat cleaver should do most of the chopping work for you, so look for one with a razor-sharp blade balanced by a comfortable handle.
Knife Sharpener
Cutting meat can be dangerous if the knives are dull. An electric knife sharpener will help keep the blades razor-sharp, which means that meat will cut cleanly, and evenly.
Meat Pounder
Since we often prefer to pound our own cutlets rather than buy uneven precut cutlets from the store, a meat pounder is an important piece of equipment. There are two styles of meat pounders: those with vertical handles and those with offset handles (i.e., horizontally oriented). We prefer vertical handles, which offer better leverage and control.
Kitchen Twine
Good twine should stay tied without burning, fraying, or breaking. We prefer a center-fed cotton or linen twine for its neat ties and ability to withstand all conditions without slipping. Make sure your twine is labeled “food-safe” or “kitchen twine”.
Cutting Board
There are many types of cutting boards available on the market, but for cutting meat, we prefer to use a plastic board of the largest possible size of that will fit in our dishwasher. You can use a wooden board but you will need to wash well in hot, soapy water.
Food Processor
If you want to grind meat at home, you’ll need either a meat grinder or a food processor. We prefer the latter as we can use it for many other kitchen tasks as well. Note that many standing mixers come with grinder attachments and we’ve had good results with the attachment sold by KitchenAid.
Kitchen Scale
This piece of equipment is essential for portioning out the correct weight of meat for a recipe. A scale is also helpful for labeling meat for storage. We recommend buying a digital scale with a high capacity (at least 10 pounds) and large platform.
