Learning Classic French Cuts
BY: Kelly Singer
Batonnet. Julienne. Brunoise. These terms for precisely sized cuts standardized by French cuisine sound like they might belong in a professional kitchen, among chef coats and industrial appliances. At home, where no one is watching, it’s tempting to assume they don’t matter. After all, Trader Joe’s will happily sell you precut mirepoix and cubed butternut squash, and you can easily assemble a meal without ever lifting a knife beyond “roughly chop.”
But we owe Julia Child a debt of gratitude for introducing these techniques to American home chefs, as they will change the way you cook at a fundamental level. Classic French cuts, les taillages, are an education in attention. Under the blade, ingredients stop being generic inputs and start becoming materials with character. You learn the grain of a carrot the way a woodworker learns oak, that onions have architecture, that tomatoes somehow manage to be both delicate and structured at the same time.
The practical reasons to learn les taillages show up immediately. Consistent cuts cook evenly, extract flavor cleanly, and make cooking timing more predictable. They give a purpose and direction in the kitchen, even when you’re just cooking something simple on a weeknight. And their beauty makes mundane tasks feel elegant. We live in an era that treats efficiency as the greatest virtue. Knife skills quietly disagree. They insist on something older and more human: mastery earned, not purchased, being able to make something beautiful, with your own hands.
Start Here: Learn Batonnet.
This cut teaches the geometry on which everything else depends. In French knife work, there are names for each precise size as you refine smaller and smaller shapes, and batonnet is the “mother cut” that trains your hand in straight lines and clean edges.
A classic batonnet is about ¼ inch by ¼ inch by 2 inches. It’s the ideal size for French fries! But it also shows up in roasted vegetables, crudités, and stir-fries.
Practice your taillages with a potato. It’s forgiving, it holds its shape, and it trains your hand in straight lines. Peel it, and save the scraps for potato leek soup. Knife work is about preventing waste.
How to Cut Batonnet
- Square off the potato. Slice a thin plank off one side, so it will lie flat. Keep going until you’ve created a tidy rectangular block.
- Cut the potato with a downward motion into lengthwise planks, each about ¼ inch thick.
- Stack and cut sticks. Stack a few planks, align them, then cut lengthwise into sticks the same thickness: ¼ inch thick.
- Trim for length. Cut into 2-inch lengths as necessary. How Batonnet Becomes Every Other Cut
- Once you can cut batonnet, you can refine the shape into other sizes. The classic progression:
Batonnet to Julienne
- To make julienne: Take your batonnet sticks and slice them lengthwise in half into ⅛-inch sticks.
Julienne to Brunoise
- Brunoise is the cube made from julienne. Line up your julienne sticks, then cut across into tiny ⅛-inch-square cube