How to Coarse Chop
It’s the chop of choice for almost any vegetable—from basic oblongs and spheroids, like garlic, onions, and potatoes, to the more irregular oddities, like mushrooms, rhubarb, and sun-dried tomatoes.
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You Will Need
- A chef’s knife
- A cutting board
- And a vegetable to cut
Steps
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Step 1
Wash & peel
Wash and peel the vegetable, if necessary.
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Step 2
Grasp knife
Grasp the knife in your dominant hand, holding the handle close to the blade with three fingers: your middle, ring, and pinkie. Curl your forefinger around one side of the blade while holding your thumb on the opposite side.
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Step 3
Chop ends
With your non-knife-wielding hand, hold the vegetable firmly on the cutting board close to the area you will cut, and chop off the ends of the vegetable.
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Step 4
Cut in half
Cut the vegetable in half with a vertical slice.
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Keep the point of the knife on the board and use a steady rocking motion to slice—not saw—the vegetable with the full length of the blade.
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Step 5
Slice vertically
With one vegetable half at a time, slice the vegetable vertically into ½' to ¾' slabs.
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Don’t worry about being too exact when coarse chopping. This cut is mainly used to prep vegetables for cooking, so their final shapes don’t need to be perfect.
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Step 6
Rotate & cut
Give each of the slab-cut vegetable halves a quarter-turn and then slice the slabs vertically into ½' to ¾' pieces until you have a coarsely chopped pile.
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The food processor, a French invention, is another way to coarse chop vegetables—just drop in large chunks and whir for about 5 seconds.
