My Favourite Santoku Knife

The Made In Japanese Damascus Metal Santoku topped my exams with its sharp blade, attractiveness, and excessive efficiency in all conditions. For a price range possibility, the Mercer Culinary Genesis Santoku did fairly properly in testing regardless of its shockingly low value.

How I Examined Santoku Knives

I examined 12 completely different santoku knives. Starting with basic design, deal with consolation, and weight stability, I rated the knives on a wide range of traits as I put them via a sequence of an identical exams.

• Candy Potato Take a look at: I used every santoku to halve, peel, and chop a candy potato into cubes. Slicing via the dense flesh was a great way to guage every knife’s energy and precision with heavy gadgets, and peeling helped observe the extent of sharpness.
• Mozzarella Take a look at: To measure efficiency with mushy, sticky substances, I used every knife to chop a small ball of mozzarella into slices. I famous how a lot effort and back-and-forth sawing I wanted to get via the cheese, how simply I used to be in a position to get skinny and even slices, and the way a lot the slices caught to the aspect of the knife.
• Garlic Take a look at: To price chopping efficiency, I used every santoku to cut three peeled garlic cloves totally. I famous how effectively every knife lower via the garlic and the way a lot effort and time I wanted to scale back it to a totally minced texture.
• Steak Take a look at: I used every santoku to chop 3 ounces of steak into cubes, noting whether or not any blades had hassle slicing via meat and the way simply they have been in a position to make even items.
• Cleansing: Between exams, I hand-washed every knife, noting those who wanted further scrubbing on the blade or deal with, and any that have been particularly slippery when moist.

Solely after finishing all my different exams did I reveal the retail costs of the santokus to contemplate worth for cash. On the time of testing, the 12 santokus ranged from $38 to $199, with a mean of $131.

What I Appeared For within the Greatest Santoku Knife

Blade Materials and Design

Metal is by far the commonest materials used for knives of all types. Japanese knives particularly are sometimes created from carbon metal, which comprises further carbon, making it tougher than regular and in a position to maintain a finer edge for longer. The drawback of carbon metal is that it is extra brittle and extra vulnerable to rust. Chrome steel is made with added chromium, which makes it shiny and rust-resistant, however softer and fewer sharpenable. There are lots of completely different “recipes” for metal which have completely different combos of properties, and a few knives additionally layer a number of steels collectively to realize completely different results.

With the santoku particularly, the precise form of the blade is necessary, too. The underside of the knife needs to be rounded for a rocking slicing movement, however completely different fashions have completely different curves that work greatest with completely different knife methods. A santoku’s broad blade offers it energy and is helpful for issues like crushing garlic cloves, however the form additionally makes it heavy for its measurement — and every santoku is a bit of completely different in peak, size, and weight.

One other design side to search for is a Granton edge. This can be a sequence of divots carved into the blade that create air pockets so meals does not stick. It is an particularly useful function when you plan to slice quite a lot of meat, cheese, and different moist or sticky substances.

Deal with Materials and Design

It does not matter how sharp the blade is; if a knife is painful to carry or slips out of your hand, it isn’t an excellent knife. There are many completely different deal with shapes out there, and I discover that one of the best ones are neither completely spherical nor completely sq.. Sharp corners are safe within the hand, however they don’t seem to be significantly snug. Round handles really feel good, however they’re slippery, particularly when moist. Spherical-cornered rectangles or oval shapes can each be very efficient, together with your favourite relying on precisely the way you maintain your knife.

By way of deal with materials, wooden and plastic are quite common, together with composites like Micarta and Pakkawood, that are layers of wooden and different supplies bonded collectively in a plastic resin. Whatever the materials, it is best to take a look at the feel, which may vary from completely easy (simple to wash however probably slippery) to tough and sandpapery (good for grip however can maintain onto bits of meals). One other deal with design side to concentrate to is the rivets that join the deal with and blade: Ideally, these ought to really feel completely easy, with no gaps the place corrosion can start to kind.

Weight and Stability

Santokus are pretty gentle knives on the whole: Those I examined ranged in weight from 3.5 to eight.8 ounces. This isn’t meant to be a knife that is robust to raise, however there was a noticeable distinction in really feel between fashions. A heavier knife does not supply as a lot management, however the weight helps lower via robust or dense meals with much less effort. Lighter knives are extra agile however much less highly effective, however you do need some quantity of weight to carry the blade securely in your hand.

Simply as necessary as general weight is weight stability. Ideally, the deal with and blade offset one another completely, which makes the knife as secure as attainable and provides you probably the most management. But when a knife is a bit unbalanced, it is higher if it is weighted towards the blade than towards the deal with. A heftier blade can really feel prefer it’s pulling itself via meals, whereas a knife that is balanced towards the deal with needs to tug the blade backward out of the meals.

Different Santoku Knives I Examined

Sturdy Contenders

Masamoto HC Japanese Santoku ($198 at Amazon)

I felt excellent management holding this knife, and it did a wonderful job in my exams. The explanation it isn’t on my listing of winners is that it discolored fairly badly after a single rinse and wash. I washed all of the take a look at santokus collectively in the identical method and the Masamoto was the one one with this drawback, so it is lots much less forgiving than rivals in relation to care. (Notably, Masamoto’s nakiri didn’t discolor in my nakiri testing and was my choose for greatest splurge.)

Tojiro Skilled Santoku ($92 at Amazon)

Tojiro’s properly priced santoku gave me nice management, particularly when peeling the curved surfaces of a candy potato. Nonetheless, it was not as sharp because the higher-priced fashions above, needing a notable quantity of sawing to slice the steak and many chops to get via the garlic.

Victorinox 7-Inch Rosewood Santoku ($67 at Amazon)

This wood-handled santoku is a superb price range purchase, with an especially sharp blade that carried out a lot better than I anticipated given the light-weight design and plain wood deal with. It will have been my choose for one of the best worth, besides the Mercer Genesis did even higher and is cheaper.

What Did not Make the Checklist

Not one of the santokus in my take a look at stood out as a nasty performer; the fashions not included above simply fell a bit behind the remaining, both in efficiency or worth. All 5 come from manufacturers that we belief and which have produced winners in different knife class exams: International, Mac, Misen, Shun, and Wüsthof.

Our Experience

Meals & Wine senior author Jason Horn examined 12 santokus at house and wrote this roundup. With a grasp’s in journalism and a culinary diploma, he is been writing about meals and drinks for practically 20 years, together with at Liquor.com, Playboy, and Severe Eats. Our resident knife-testing skilled, he is additionally examined and reviewed butcher knives, meat cleavers, oyster knives, brisket slicers, and extra.