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Best Overall
Messermeister 3-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
Runner-Up
Hyde and Eek Deluxe 4-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
The Best Cheap Tools
Hyde and Eek 5-Piece Easy Grip Pumpkin Carving Kit
For Precision Detail (if It’s Available)
Antner 10-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
Growing up, I was never satisfied with the pumpkin carving kits my folks would bring home from department stores and discount outlets. The cheap plastic handles bent easily, and the dull blades made carving out a jack-o’-lantern rough work for my small arm muscles. It was like trying to cut through a wooden chair leg with another wooden chair leg. Like any good ’90s kid who thought safety was just marketing jargon, I supplemented my toolkit with steak knives and metal mixing spoons from the kitchen drawers.
Kids today have better options. They may use them only once a year, but having the right tools makes the experience of carving a pumpkin much more pleasant. Practice on a few pumpkins a day for a few years and they could develop skills like the master carver we profiled in 2020. Just make sure there’s always an adult present! To test these tools, I spent an entire afternoon on a rooftop with a group of friends and a dozen pumpkins, hacking and scraping a bunch of terrifying faces (and a few friendly ones) into pungent, orange canvases. It reminded me that there’s nothing inherently kids-only about carving pumpkins. The cost barrier is low, the nostalgia factor is high, and there’s no way to screw it up as long as you’re having fun. Also, don’t throw out your seeds! Bake ’em up for a delicious snack.
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Photograph: Amazon
Best Overall
Messermeister 3-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
There may be only three pieces to this kit from California knifesmith Messermeister, but three good pieces are preferable to a pile of subpar tools. The blades cut through the pumpkin rind cleanly and smoothly—they’re remarkably sharp and sturdy compared to the competition. The orange plastic handles were the most comfortable of all the tools I used; they’re contoured and plump enough to get a good grip without slipping. The tiniest hands may find them a bit large, although a kid old enough to be handed a knife like this likely won’t have any issues.
The serrated blade cuts as well as the steak knives I used as a kid, and the metal scooper let me scrape the maximum amount of membrane out of the pumpkin in fewer strokes. The etching tool is basically a channel knife that does a fine job outlining designs before committing to the cut.
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Photograph: Target
Runner-Up
Hyde and Eek Deluxe 4-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
If you don’t mind that the blades don’t cut quite as well as our top pick, Hyde and Eek’s Deluxe kit is a nice carving kit that’s widely available at Target and other stores around Halloween. They’re not as comfy to hold as the Messermeister, and the patches of rubber on the handles are so small that they have little effect on eliminating slip, though they’re plump and contoured enough that slipping isn’t much of a problem. The metal doesn’t feel as thick, but I was never worried about it bending, and the sharpness was more than adequate for the task at hand.
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Photograph: Target
The Best Cheap Tools
Hyde and Eek 5-Piece Easy Grip Pumpkin Carving Kit
There’s a bit more rubber on these tools, making them less likely to slip as you carve. The contouring makes using them for long stretches rather comfortable. They cut adequately, considering their low cost. They’re too similar though. I’d rather have another type of tool than the one with the non-pointed end, which makes puncturing the rind to start new holes hard.
Unlike most, this kit doesn’t come with a spoon for removing the seeds and guts from the inside of the pumpkin. Instead, it has a non-handled scooper that looks more like a tool for cleaning cast-iron pans. Using it means going elbow-deep in pumpkin goo. You really have to get all the way inside the gourd since there’s no handle on the scraper. Given the kit’s low price, you could make do with a metal kitchen spoon or buy the Hyde and Eek Serrated Pumpkin Carving Spoon separately.
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Photograph: Amazon
For Precision Detail (if It’s Available)
Antner 10-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
Note: This kit is out of stock as of publishing time, so check back to see whether it’s available again.
Forget that it looks like a torture toolkit a Bond villain would unroll, the Antner scooper and knives cut powerfully, thanks to sharp edges and thick metal. I’d have preferred a straight blade on at least one of the knives, as the weird shapes make some carving tasks a bit awkward. The handles aren’t as plump nor as contoured as the Messermeister’s, so the grip isn’t as secure, but they’re longer, so small kids’ hands may have a harder time holding them.
That said, this is a great set for adults looking to make detailed carvings thanks to the six Xacto-knife-sized precision tools. They have 12 varied cutting edges, giving you fine control for fancier designs.
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Photograph: Amazon
Another Solid Choice for Fine Detail
Elmchee 13-Piece Pumpkin Carving Kit
Note: This kit is out of stock as of publishing time, so check back to see whether it’s available again.
Despite its glowing reviews, I found this kit perfectly adequate. The semi-flat handles aren’t as comfortable as the Messermeister tools, but they should be easier for tiny hands to use while still resisting slipping, due to the indentations. The blades and scooper performed well although a bit less impressively than the Messermeister and Antner, and the precision tools have less-useful heads than those of the Antner kit.
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Photograph: Target
Avoid These Carving Kits
Send These Foul Beasts Into the Abyss
Hyde and Eek Silly Eyes Pumpkin Carving Kit for $5: Nothing about these tools stood out from the crowd of other $5 and $10 kits. The only real reason to buy this kit is for the googly eyes you stick into the pumpkin for a three-dimensional effect. But isn’t the fun of carving a jack-o’-lantern the eyes?
Pumpkin Masters All-in-One 21-Piece Carving Party Kit for $24: This had a plastic scooper that didn’t work as well as metal ones. The tools’ handles also weren’t as comfortable or secure-feeling as our favorite kits. It’s pricey compared to the picks above. Despite the lofty claims of 21 pieces, only six of them are tools—seven if you count the crayon. The rest are stencil patterns. For outlining designs and fine details before committing to the cut, the other kits’ precision tools worked better than the plastic-bladed hole puncher in this kit. It also goes in and out of stock, so it may not always be available.
Pumpkin Masters “Masters Collection” Pumpkin Carving Kit for $11: This kit was fine. The best thing I can say about this unremarkable kit is that the two knives’ cutting performance was OK but didn’t stand out. The V-cutter tool looks like an industrial piece that snapped in half when leaving the factory and felt clumsy compared to other precision tools. The only other fine-detail tool is a plastic poker. The scooper is unusually deep. It was useful for the initial steps of clearing out a pumpkin and moving masses of seeds efficiently. But once I got them out, it was more unwieldy to scrap away at the membrane with such a concave scoop. At least it’s metal.
Matt Jancer is a staff writer for WIRED who focuses on reviewing outdoor gear. Previously, he spent a decade as a freelance writer covering automobiles, motorcycles, and lifestyle stories for magazines. Some of his longest gigs were at Car and Driver, Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and Popular Mechanics.