The 6 Best Butcher Knives of 2024, According to My Tests

My Favorite Butcher Knife

The heavy-duty Mercer Culinary 12-Inch Granton Edge Cimiter is my top pick, thanks to its low cost, large size, and sharp blade. It's a versatile knife for boning, slicing, and chopping almost any type of meat. If you prefer a smaller blade that's worth paying extra for, the Benchmade Meatcrafter 6-Inch Hunting Knife is equally useful in the kitchen, on the lake, and in the woods, with serious quality of craftsmanship.

How I Tested Butcher Knives

Based on expert recommendations and the results of previous tests, we chose 12 butcher knives to compare side-by-side for this story. I made general notes on shape, balance, comfort, and feel before performing a series of identical tests. (The Victorinox above was the winner of a separate set of testing involving 12 fish fillet knives.)

• Paper test: To evaluate sharpness, I used each knife to slice through a sheet of paper held firm in one hand. I looked at how easily the blade slid into the paper, and whether it could slice through with minimal effort and without tearing.
• Chicken tests: I used each knife to butcher half a chicken, first slicing one breast off the breastbone while still attached to the wing, then separating the wing flat to create an airline breast. I removed the leg and thigh together, then sliced through the joint to separate them. As a final test of weight, strength, and durability, I also attempted to cut straight through the wing flat, including the bones. (The carcasses made a big batch of chicken stock!)
• Cleaning: After testing, I hand-washed all the knives, noting whether they held on to any food bits or needed extra scrubbing.

After completing the other tests, I revealed the retail prices of the knives to consider value. At the time of testing, the 12 butcher knives ranged from $35 to $200, with an average of $89.

Factors to Consider

Blade Shape

All butcher knives are intended for cutting meat, but there are many different types of meat you might want to cut, and several different styles of butcher knives.

A boning knife is shorter than a typical chef's knife, with a thin, curved blade and an extremely sharp edge. As the name suggests, it's made for separating meat and bone, with a shape made for precise control. A fish fillet knife is a type of boning knife with an especially thin and usually flexible blade that's gentle on delicate fish flesh.

A breaking knife has a similar design to a boning knife, but with a larger and longer blade, at 8 to 12 inches. It's made to break down a large cut into individual steaks or chops, and to trim off excess fat and connective tissue. It's extremely sharp but can be too long and too heavy for general chopping and slicing. (Most knives labeled simply "butcher knife" are this type.)

Looking a bit like a sword, a cimiter has a long, curved blade that's wider than a boning or breaking knife. It can make precise, even cuts through thick steaks or use its weight to hack through joints and portion out whole poultry.

The meat cleaver is a large, rectangular knife that you'll often see butchers wielding, but it's quite different from a butcher knife. It's a heavy, thick blade that's not necessarily razor-sharp; it's meant more for cutting through bone than for slicing meat from bone. To separate thick marrow bones or split a whole pig, you can even add force by hitting the spine of the blade with a mallet. (The Chinese cleaver has a similar rectangular shape, but it's much thinner and sharper, meant for slicing vegetables.)

Balance

“Balance is definitely the key to a good knife,” says Pawan Pinisetti, a winner of Food Network's Chopped and executive chef at Sérêvène in Miami. “A well-balanced knife will be critical to how well you can perform with it.”

A knife's balance refers how evenly the weight is distributed between the handle and blade. Ideally, a knife should hold level if you balance it on your finger right where the blade meets the handle. It should feel natural to hold, without the tip of the blade pulling itself noticeably up or down. This helps avoid wrist fatigue, make it less likely that the blade will slip, and gives you more accurate control in general.

Blade Material 

Nearly all knives are made of steel — a mix of iron and carbon — but there are different "recipes" for steel that have different characteristics. Carbon steel has high carbon content and is very hard, which means it can hold a sharp edge longer but is more expensive to make and more difficult to sharpen. Stainless steel incorporates chromium, which makes it a shiny, rust-resistant, and softer material. Stainless steel blades can't be made quite as sharp as carbon steel, but they're easier to re-sharpen at home when they get dull.

Most butcher knives are made of stainless steel, as it's better able to absorb the impact of knife on bone. Harder carbon steel is prone to chipping when used in butchery.

Handle Material and Shape

A grip that's comfortable and won't slip out of your hand is crucial with any blade, but that's especially true with a butcher knife you're likely to put a lot of force behind. Rubber and plastic are fairly common materials, as they're economical and easy to clean, though they might not look very fancy. Finished wood handles can be gorgeous, but they add cost and can catch food bits in their seams and rivets, while cheap unfinished wood feels rough and can start to deteriorate when it gets wet. One handle material many high-end knife brands use is Pakkawood, which is not actually a type of wood but a composite of wood and resin. This maintains the look of wood grain but has a completely smooth and fully washable surface.

The shape of the handle is also important to comfort and solid grip. Square corners and rectangular profiles are less likely to twist in the hand, but they're also cramped to hold. A mixture of rounded and angular tends to work best.

Other Butcher Knives I Tested

Strong Contenders

Victorinox Fibrox 10-Inch Cimeter Knife ($74 at Amazon)

Multiple pro chefs and butchers recommended knives from Victorinox's inexpensive Fibrox line, and this model proved both very sharp and very secure to hold in testing. I liked its substantial weight, but it was a bit too big for fine work. The main problem with Fibrox is that it's disappearing: Victorinox has decided to make the knives available only to commercial chefs, and they're becoming harder and harder to find at retail.

Dalstrong Gladiator Series 10-Inch Cimitar Knife ($114 at Amazon)

I was really impressed with the Dalstrong's handle, a really comfortable Pakkawood oval whose rivets felt perfectly smooth and cleaned up without a problem. It cut quite smoothly, but it was so heavy that it felt a little out of control. It's a good knife that I don't think is quite worth its high cost.

Messermeister Pro Series Kullenschliff Scimitar ($60 at Amazon)

Messermeister's scimitar is very, very sharp and got through chicken with ease. And despite its reasonable price, it's well-built — its Granton edge lines up with the curved blade, unlike the Mercer above. The handle is made of a similar plastic to the F. Dick above, which was similarly slippery, unfortunately. It's kind of a combination of my top two knives, but it's pricier than either one so it didn't make the winners.

What Didn't Make the List

The knives that earned my lowest scores all had multiple positive characteristics but one major flaw, whether an uncomfortable handle, unbalanced weight, dull blade, or too high a price. This included a Cutluxe, Wüsthof, and Dexter-Russell, all brands whose knives have been top finishers in other tests.

Our Expertise

• Jason Horn updated this story after testing 12 butcher knives at home. Having attended both journalism and culinary school, he's been writing about food and drinks for nearly 20 years. He's Food & Wine's staff knife expert and ran our real-world tests on fish fillet knives, brisket slicers, oyster knives, and more.
• Clarissa Buch Zilberman wrote the original version of this story after speaking to several chefs and butchers around the country for their advice. An acclaimed food writer with nearly a decade of experience, she covers lifestyle, business, and travel for a variety of publications, including Travel + Leisure, Bon Appétit, Entrepreneur, and Realtor.com.