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Chiffonade is a technique for cutting herbs and green leafy vegetables into long, thin strips. Here’s how to chiffonade — including a video!

Chiffonade is a technique for cutting herbs and green leafy vegetables into long, thin strips. You may have seen basil, spinach or mint cut in this way. It turns it into beautiful, thin ribbons to garnish a dish. Want to know how to do it? Here’s how to chiffonade in a few simple steps: and we’ve made a video for you, too!

Video: How to chiffonade

How to chiffonade

How to chiffonade? You can use the chiffonade technique to cut herbs and green leafy vegetables into thin strips. Here are the basic steps for how to chiffonade:

Place all the leaves in a stack, with the stems facing the same way.
Roll up the leaves, toward the stem end.
With a firm grip on your chef’s knife, cut the roll into thin strips cross-wise.

When we first started cooking, we had no idea the right way to hold a knife, let alone the first idea of why to chiffonade! But as we’ve learned more, we’ve started to use this technique in many of our recipes — especially those with fresh, leafy herbs like basil, mint, and sage.

Recipes to practice chiffonade

Here are a few recipes where you can practice your chiffonade cutting technique!

More knife skills

We have an entire series to help you learn knife skills, including videos! Here are a few of our favorite knife skills posts:

How to Chiffonade

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Total Time: 1 minute

Chiffonade is a technique for cutting herbs and green leafy vegetables into long, thin strips. Here’s how to chiffonade — including a video!

Materials

Herbs or green leafy vegetables

Tools

Chef's knife

Instructions

Stack the leaves with the stems facing in the same direction.
Roll the leaves towards the stem end.
With a firm grip on your chef’s knife, cut the roll into thin strips cross-wise.