Santoku Knives: Japan's Blade of Three Virtues for Home Chefs

Japanese Knives and Washoku

Japanese knives - both the way they're made and the way they're used - lie at the heart of washoku because the cut determines the taste.

A keen edge slides through ingredients instead of crushing them, leaving fibers intact, locking in the moisture in fish and vegetables and smoothening sashimi so it feels even silkier in your mouth.

In Japanese cuisine, presentation is also paramount - offering a beautiful vegetable cross-section is all part of hospitality.

And yet Japanese knives can feel like a museum that somehow ended up in your kitchen. Deba for fish. Yanagiba for sashimi. Usuba for vegetables. A family of specialist tools that evolved over centuries, each one brilliant - and each one capable of making a home cook think, 'Do I really need all of this to make a bowl of soba?'

You don’t.

Start with just two blades: a petty knife, for smaller tasks such as peeling fruit, and the santoku, to cut vegetables and almost everything else.

History of the Santoku Knife

The santoku bocho - often shortened to santoku - is a relatively young blade by Japanese standards. It emerged in the 1940s, in the shadow of World War II, when Japanese home kitchens were absorbing new ingredients and habits.

As Western-style cuisine and proteins became more common, households were confronted with the culinary problem of keeping separate knives for fish, meat and vegetables.

The answer: the blade of three virtues.

Santoku knives are versatile, no matter how you interpret their name, commonly translated as 'three virtues' or 'three uses'. Depending on whom you ask, that 'three' points to:

• The three ingredients it can handle: meat, fish and vegetables
• The three cutting tasks it excels at: slicing, dicing and mincing.

Once meant for the Japanese home cook navigating a changing table, the santoku has become one of the most approachable kitchen knives in the world - one that's equally at ease with carrots, chicken and a slightly-too-ambitious dinner plan.

Santoku Blade Geometry: How It Differs from Western Chef Knives

If you line up a santoku and a Western chef’s knife, the resemblance is obvious - and so is the difference.

Japanese santoku knives typically feature:

• A shorter blade than many Western chef knives, often in the 13-20 cm range, with 16.5-18 cm (about 6.5 to 7 inches) especially common. Chef knives generally range from 15-30 cm, with 20 cm (about 8 inches) being the standard length for home-use knives.
• A wider blade that offers more knuckle clearance, which matters when you’re working close to a cutting board in a small kitchen.
• A distinctive silhouette described as a sheepsfoot, where the spine curves down toward a rounded tip, often approaching a 60-degree drop near the point.
• A flatter edge that favors straight chopping as well as cutting with a slight push rather than rocking the knife.
• Many Western chef knives, especially German-style ones, have a pronounced belly (the curve leading to the tip). They are built for the rocking motion: tip anchored, heel rising and falling, the knife moving like a hinge. Santoku knives, by contrast, usually make more continuous contact with the board: down, forward and through.
• Western chef’s knives tend to sit at roughly 15 to 20 degrees per side, while santoku edges are often sharpened at a more acute angle - 10 to 12 degrees - that helps the blade glide with less resistance.

This fine edge is also why santoku can feel so sharp. The tradeoff is that harder, thinner edges can be more prone to chipping if you treat them like butcher knives and use them for tasks that need power. This is not the blade for bones, frozen foods or prying a stubborn jar lid off. It is a blade for accuracy.

How to Use a Santoku Knife: The 3 Virtues of Slice, Dice and Mince

The santoku’s three virtues show up in the first 10 minutes of dinner prep.

Slice

For slicing, the santoku thrives on clean, single-pass cuts - vegetables, boneless proteins, fish fillets, fruit. The flatter edge and thin blade reward a forward-and-down push cut, where the knife moves slightly forward as it descends. This is the motion that makes cucumber coins look identical and onion slices fall like tidy paper.

Dice

Dicing is where the wider blade earns its keep. You get knuckle clearance, better control and a broad face that can be used to scoop and transfer ingredients. If you’ve ever tried to move diced carrots with a narrow chef knife and watched half of them slide back onto the board, you’ll appreciate the santoku’s wide profile.

Mince

Mincing, especially garlic, ginger and herbs, is where people argue about santoku versus a chef’s knife.

The santoku is not built for exaggerated rocking but it can handle a small, restrained version - and it excels at rapid, fine chopping with a controlled up-and-down rhythm. The trick is to let the blade do the work and keep the motion compact.

Steel Choices: Stainless, Carbon Steel and Damascus for the Home Cook

Whether a Western or Japanese kitchen knife, this holds true: the steel changes how the knife reacts to its environment and how much attention it needs.

Stainless steel: The practical choice

Most home cooks do best with stainless steel. It resists rust, tolerates a busy sink and won't sulk if you don't have the time to baby it. Many modern santoku knives are built for this reality.

High-carbon steel: Sharpness you have to live with

Carbon steel is beloved because it sharpens beautifully and can take an exceptionally keen edge. But it will become stained and rust if left wet.

If you like the idea of maintaining a tool - the Japanese tradition of 'raising' a knife through repeated sharpening and long use - carbon steel can feel deeply satisfying. Just be clear that it is not low-maintenance.

Damascus santoku: Performance plus surface drama

A Damascus santoku usually refers to layered cladding that creates a rippling pattern on the blade.

In many modern kitchen knives, this is a layered construction around a harder core steel, offering corrosion resistance on the outside and hardness at the edge - plus a finish that makes you want to leave the knife on the counter where people can admire it.

For many home cooks, a stainless or Damascus-clad stainless santoku makes the most sense.

Choose the Best Santoku Knife for You

Blade length can be approached with simple body logic: the knife should feel comfortable in your hand, not like a lever you have to wrestle.

Most santoku knives cluster around 16.5-18 cm (roughly 6.5 to 7 inches). These lengths became standard for good reason: they suit smaller cutting boards, tighter kitchens and a wide range of hand sizes.

If you have smaller hands, a smaller cutting board or you value maximum control, aim for 16.5 cm (about 6.5 inches). This length feels nimble, reduces fatigue during extended use and makes detailed cutting tasks less intimidating.

If you have average to larger hands, you prep bigger vegetables or you want one single knife that can do it all, choose an 18 cm (7 inches) blade.

Cooks who prefer larger knives and find themselves tempted by longer santoku (7.5 to 8 inches) may actually be hankering after a gyuto. Santoku’s charm is its compact authority. Push it too far and you’re drifting into chef knife territory.

A useful hand-size check: hold the knife in a pinch grip (thumb and forefinger on the blade just in front of the handle). If the knife feels balanced rather than tip-heavy, and if your wrist feels relaxed after a few imaginary cuts, you’re close. 

Some santoku knives also feature a Granton edge: dimples along the blade that help prevent food from sticking.

If this is a priority - for example, if starchy vegetables regularly appear on your chopping board - consider a knife that also has a thin grind. Just keep in mind that a thinner blade is more prone to damage and needs more frequent sharpening.

Knife Care: Clean, Sharpen, Store

Japanese knives are known for their sharpness but it's a sharpness that demands a long-term relationship.

• Hand-wash and dry it immediately. Even stainless steel benefits from this habit and carbon steel demands it.
• Store it safely - a knife block, magnetic strip or blade guard. Tossing it loose in a drawer is how edges get dulled.
• Use an appropriate cutting board. Wood and quality plastic are kinder to a fine edge than glass, stone or ceramic.
• Sharpen your knives consistently: the edge angle and your technique should match what the knife was designed to be.

If you're building confidence, there's no shame in getting your knives sharpened professionally. The goal is not to become a blade monk. The goal is to cook.

Exploring Seki: Japanese Craftsmanship in the City of Blades

If the santoku is the home cook’s gateway into the world of Japanese blades, Seki city is one of the places where that gateway is forged - literally.

Seki in Gifu Prefecture is often called the City of Blades or the City of Swords. With clear rivers providing water for cooling hot steel and other local resources that supported forging, the area developed into a center of swordsmithing that boasts roots stretching back to the Kamakura period (1185-1333).

As Japan modernized and the age of the samurai came to a close, the craft adapted. Seki’s blade craftsmen moved from forging swords to making cutlery and modern cutting tools such as kitchen knives, scissors and precision implements.

Seki knives have a strong brand identity in Japan and Seki is frequently mentioned alongside Solingen and Sheffield as one of the world’s major cutlery production areas.

For visitors, Seki doesn’t just sell blades - it stages the culture of Japanese steel around them.

Workshops, museums and demonstrations make 'craftsmanship' feel less like a marketing word and more like a local language.

If you're the kind of home chef who likes tools with a lineage, put Seki on your list of must-visit cities in Japan.

The Real Meaning of a High-Quality Knife

The santoku-vs-chef-knife debate will never end, partly because both sides are right. A Western chef’s knife is excellent at rocking cuts and big prep. A santoku knife shines in controlled chopping, clean slicing and everyday efficiency, especially in home kitchens where counter space is limited and 'one good knife' is the goal.

Versatile though it is, the santoku doesn’t do everything - but it does enough things well that you can stop thinking about knives altogether and get on with making dinner.

And that's the point of a great multi-purpose kitchen knife: it turns cutting tasks into momentum.

By Janice Tay