HUB 03 · Guides
How to Cut a Tomato
A squashed tomato is almost always a dull-knife problem. Here's how to slice one cleanly — and why sharpness matters more than technique here.
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If your tomatoes come out crushed and weeping, the problem is almost never your technique — it's a dull knife. A tomato's smooth, taut skin is the classic test of a sharp edge: a keen blade bites straight through it, a dull one skids and then squashes the soft interior. So step one of cutting a tomato well is having a sharp knife. Here's the method, using the grip from how to hold a chef's knife.
Step by step
How to do it
- 01
Start with a sharp knife
This is 90% of it. A sharp chef's or serrated knife bites the skin under its own weight; a dull one slides and crushes. If yours skids on the skin, it fails the tomato test — hone or sharpen it first (see how to tell if a knife is sharp). A serrated knife is a great tomato tool precisely because its teeth grab the skin even when a bit dull.
- 02
Set up safely
Use a non-slip board (damp towel underneath), a pinch grip on the knife, and keep your guiding hand in a claw with fingertips curled under. Rinse and dry the tomato so it doesn't slide.
- 03
Remove the core
Sit the tomato stem-side up and cut a small shallow cone around the tough stem core with the knife tip, then lift it out. For small tomatoes you can skip this; for larger ones it removes the pale hard bit nobody wants.
- 04
For slices: lay it on its side
Turn the tomato onto its side (stem end pointing sideways, not up) so you slice through the 'equator'. This keeps the seed chambers intact and gives neat rounds. Using the tip to start each cut, slice straight down with a gentle forward draw — let the sharp edge do the work, don't press.
- 05
For wedges: halve, then cut from the pole
Cut the tomato in half through the core end, lay each half flat side down, then cut wedges from the top (pole) toward the board. Flat-side-down keeps it stable so it can't roll.
- 06
For a dice (concasse): slabs, strips, cubes
For a fine dice, slice the tomato into flat rounds, stack a few, cut into strips, then cut across into cubes — the same three-step approach as dicing any round vegetable. Keep the guiding-hand claw and let the knife's sharpness, not force, do the cutting.
Questions
Frequently asked
Why does my knife squash tomatoes instead of slicing them?
The knife is dull. Tomato skin is smooth and taut, so a keen edge bites straight through it while a dull one skids across and then crushes the soft flesh. Hone or sharpen the knife, or use a serrated blade whose teeth grab the skin. It's a sharpness problem, not a technique one.
What's the best knife for cutting tomatoes?
A sharp chef's knife works perfectly; a serrated knife is also excellent because its teeth bite the skin even when slightly dull. The key is a keen edge — see our best chef knives and keep it sharp.
How do you cut a tomato without making a mess?
Use a sharp knife, lay the tomato on its side for slices (or flat-side-down for wedges), and let the edge do the work without pressing — pressing forces out the juice and seeds. Coring first removes the tough stem end. A sharp blade is the difference between clean slices and a squashed mess.
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Sources
We do not run a test kitchen, and we do not pretend to. Specs are the manufacturer's published figures, attributed as such; where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.