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Culinary Arts & Cooking vocabulary · Knife Skills & Cuts

Chop

Meaning in culinary arts & cooking, with examples

/tʃɒp/verbCore term

In culinary arts & cooking, chop means: To cut food into pieces with a knife, usually quickly and without needing every piece to be exactly the same size.

In Turkish: doğramak, kıymak

How it is used

The most general cutting verb in recipes and kitchen instructions. Recipes say roughly chopped or finely chopped; chefs ask you to chop onions, herbs or nuts. When the size must be exact, more precise words such as dice or mince are used.

Example sentences

  1. Chop the parsley finely and keep it in a damp cloth until service.

  2. The vegetables for the stock only need to be roughly chopped.

Common collocations

  • finely chop
  • roughly chop
  • chopped onions
  • chop herbs
  • chopping board
  • diceTo cut food into small, even cubes. As a noun, dice also means the cubes themselves, as in a fine dice of carrot.
  • sliceTo cut something into thin, flat pieces. As a noun, a slice is one of these pieces, such as a slice of bread or lemon.
  • minceTo cut or grind food into very small pieces, finer than chopping. In British English, mince as a noun also means minced meat.
  • chef's knifeA large all-purpose kitchen knife with a broad, slightly curved blade, usually 20 to 25 cm long, used for most chopping, slicing and dicing.

More terms: Knife Skills & Cuts

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