Best Nakiri Knives

A nakiri looks like a small cleaver and behaves like nothing else in the drawer. Flat edge, tall blade, no tip. For vegetables it is the fastest knife you can own.

The flat edge is the whole point. A chef's knife has a curved belly, so on a straight downward cut only part of the edge touches the board — which is why the last millimeter of an onion slice stays attached and the whole thing unfolds like a concertina. A nakiri's edge contacts the board along its full length, so the cut finishes. Over a kilo of vegetables that difference compounds into real time.

The tall blade does two things. At around 45mm at the heel, your knuckles clear the board in a pinch grip, and the broad flat face works as a bench scraper for moving prepped vegetables to the pan.

A nakiri is a second or third knife. It earns its place in a kitchen that already has a general-purpose blade and does a lot of vegetable prep — weeknight stir-fries, big salads, anything where you are working through a board of produce rather than portioning a protein.

1. Straight down, not rocking. There is no belly to rock on. Lift, place, press.
2. Let the height work. Pinch the blade, knuckles against the flat, and guide with your other hand as a fence.
3. Push slightly forward on the way down for anything with a skin — a tomato or a bell pepper — so the edge slices rather than crushes.
4. Scoop with the face, not the edge. Turning a nakiri onto its spine to sweep the board is fine; scraping with the edge is how you dull it.

The two square corners of a nakiri are thin and unsupported, and they are the first thing to ding. Keep it off hard boards — a soft rubber or hinoki surface is materially kinder, which we cover in the board guide — and never store it loose in a drawer. A sheath costs almost nothing.

The Tojiro DP nakiri is the one to buy. VG-10 at 59 to 61 HRC, a genuinely consistent 1.8mm spine, 45mm of blade height, at a price that makes it an easy addition rather than a decision. The Shun Classic nakiri is a better object with a flat grind that releases a little more cleanly and a handle that works left-handed, and it costs several times as much to do the same job.