A santoku knife is an all-purpose knife that can be used in many tasks on several different types of food.  Santoku actually means “3 virtues” or “3 uses”.  Many have said that these 3 uses either refer to meat, fish, and vegetables.  These are three foods often cut with the santoku.  Others believe it refers to three of the common cutting types used with a santoku knife, slicing, dicing, and chopping. 

A good santoku knife is as good a friend to the home chef as it is to the professional, and its wide straight blade makes scooping and dropping your freshly prepped veggies, meat, or spices into a waiting pot or pan faster and easier than a curved chef’s knife.

Santoku knives are particularly adept at creating very thin slices of foods, which improves the overall aesthetics of completed dishes.

Best used for:

Cutting meat

Slicing cheese

Slicing, chopping or dicing fruits, vegetables and nuts

Mincing meat or herbs

Scooping food off a cutting board due to wide blade

Creating fine slices, particularly useful for vegetables and seafood