The 4 Best Cleavers, According to My Tests

My Favorite Cleaver

For its versatile combination of sharpness and weight, the Global 6.5-Inch Meat Cleaver earned my top recommendation. It's a great tool for any home kitchen, able to handle meat, poultry, or hard vegetables. For the more serious home butcher, the Dalstrong Gladiator Series Obliterator Meat Cleaver is a massive knife that can take on a whole primal cut or even a whole animal.

How I Tested Cleavers

Based on previous Food & Wine knife tests that included cleavers, plus extensive online research, we chose 11 models to assess side-by-side for this roundup. I first examined each one, holding it in my hand to rate weight balance, handle shape, and general design factors, then put them through an identical series of tests.

• Chicken test: I used the cleavers to separate a chicken leg and thigh by slicing through the joint, which was a great gauge of the knives' overall weight and control, then cut the meat off the bones to test the sharpness. I also attempted to chop straight through a chicken leg bone to measure power and durability.
• Beef test: I cut a 2-ounce portion of tri-tip steak for each cleaver, then used it to chop and mince the meat to the texture of ground beef. I measured how long this took, how evenly each knife worked, and whether I ran into any specific problems related to blade shape and design.
• Butternut squash test: I used each cleaver to cut off a large section of whole raw butternut squash, then sliced off the peel and chopped it into cubes. This helped rate the blades' sharpness and ability to cut through hard ingredients. I noted how difficult it was to get through the whole squash, how much control I had while peeling and chopping, and the overall maneuverability of the cleavers.
• Cleaning: Between my other tests, I hand-washed and -dried the cleavers, rating how easy they were to get clean and whether I could move them around the sink safely.

At the end of the process, I revealed the cleavers' retail prices to consider value for money. At the time of testing, the cleavers ranged from $26 to $275, with an average of $110.

Factors to Consider

Blade Size & Sharpness

A cleaver is one of the largest kinds of kitchen knives, with a big, rectangular blade made to be heavy but controllable. You should consider blade length and height; longer and taller mean more weight, and more power to chop through meat and bone.

Another thing to consider is sharpness. Unlike most other knives, cleavers aren't always made to be ultra-sharp. A thick blade is heavier and delivers more force, but it can't make paper-thin slices and doesn't offer much fine control. Larger cleavers tend to be duller, but if you're doing large-scale butchering, you're going to need other, sharper blades anyway. Some of the smaller cleavers I tested are sharp enough for cutting meat off bones and doing some basic slicing, but none can replace a chef's knife for prep work.

Weight

A cleaver is often the heaviest blade in any knife set. Even small models weigh close to a pound, and you need some heft to deal with bones and joints. But if you can barely lift a knife, you're going to have trouble controlling it. Unless you're breaking down whole animals at home, you might not need the largest and heaviest cleavers, which can be hard to wield accurately. Something relatively small is great for chickens and pork chops.

Handle

When it comes to handles, cleavers are much the same as any other kind of knife. Wood and plastic are common materials, and every model has a slightly different handle shape and profile. Individual taste is important here, and you should go with something that feels good to you. What's most important is that the blade can't easily twist in your hand; a slick, rounded handle is liable to slip.

The material and texture of a knife handle also affect cleaning. A rough or grippy texture is more secure to hold but also more likely to hold onto bits of food. Check the rivets that attach the grip to the blade, too: They should feel smooth, with no gaps.

Other Cleavers I Tested

Strong Contenders

Juvale 8-Inch Meat Cleaver ($26 at Amazon)

This extra-large cleaver has an extra-small price. It chopped beef and deboned the chicken nicely, but it was much too dull to deal with butternut squash. I had to give up on that test after only being able to chip off uneven pieces of peel. The handle is also a bit too wide, and its screws can easily catch food bits.

Zwilling Pro 6-Inch Meat Cleaver ($275 at Amazon)

Zwilling's small cleaver is nice and heavy, making my beef and chicken tests a breeze. It wasn't sharp enough to do well with the butternut, however, and its astronomical price isn't justified compared to cheaper competitors.

Lamson Heavy Duty Meat Cleaver ($90 on Amazon)

Despite a merely average-sized blade, Lamson's cleaver did an excellent job in my beef test, finishing its chopping in the third-fastest time. It felt well-constructed and nicely balanced, but its dull blade had trouble slicing chicken and butternut.

What Didn't Make the List

The remaining cleavers' issues were all due to dullness. They couldn't slice chicken, required hammering to break through butternut squash, or needed to slice the beef slowly more than chop it. These included models from brands that have done well in other tests, like Wusthof, Dexter-Russell, and Messermeister.

Our Expertise

Jason Horn is a senior writer at Food & Wine and our resident knife-testing expert. He's loved cooking and writing his whole life and has been writing about food and drink for nearly 20 years. He did all the testing for this story at home and cooked the last of the chicken for his friends at a Labor Day party this past weekend.