Dice Cuts Compared: Japanese Kakugiri vs. Brunoise vs. Chinese Ding

What this article answers

How big brunoise, ding, and kakugiri are

Brunoise 2 mm, ding 8–10 mm, kakugiri about 1 cm and changed to suit the dish

Which dice to use for which dish

Brunoise for sauces and consommé, ding for high-heat stir-fries, kakugiri for simmered dishes

How to dice a round carrot evenly

Trim it into a prism first, then slice, cut sticks, and cut cubes. Use the trimmings in stock or soup

Whether to bevel the corners

Japanese cooks bevel for long simmers. French and Chinese cooks generally don't

Cutting into cubes is a basic cut in every cuisine. But the size, the precision, and the use change from one cooking culture to the next.

This article compares three of them. Japanese kakugiri is the everyday cube cut of Japanese home cooking. French brunoise is the tiny, exact dice. Chinese ding (丁) is the dice cut for stir-fries, the ding in gong bao ji ding.

The three dice cuts side by side

	Japanese kakugiri	French brunoise	Chinese ding
Aim	Even cooking, easy eating	Extreme precision, one shared standard	Speed and practicality, matched to the fire
Standard size	1 cm (flexible)	2 mm (exact)	8–10 mm
Tolerance	±2–3 mm	±0.5 mm	±2 mm
Names by size	No separate names by size	Strictly divided: brunoise, macédoine, and more	Clearly divided: ding, li, and more
Knife motion	Pull cut	Rocking motion	Straight-down cut
Priority	Easy eating, good looks	Precision, even cooking	Speed, even cooking
Knife	Santoku or gyuto (chef’s knife)	Chef’s knife	Chinese cleaver (wen wu dao, a mid-weight cleaver)
Main uses	Simmered dishes, stir-fries, soups	Sauces, garnishes	Stir-fries such as kung pao chicken

Brunoise is 2 mm (under ⅛ in) and ding is 8–10 mm (about ⅜ in). Kakugiri is about 1 cm (⅜ in).

French cooking names dice by size

French cooking divides dice strictly by size. Escoffier set the system down, and professional kitchens around the world still use it.

Name	Size	Use	Difficulty
Fine brunoise	1 mm	Fine sauces, consommé	Hardest
Brunoise	2 mm (3 mm in the Culinary Institute of America standard)	Sauces, garnishes	Hard
Matignon	5 mm	Sauce bases	Medium
Macédoine	5 mm	Salads, side dishes	Medium
Mirepoix	Changed to suit the use (no fixed size)	Stocks, sauce bases	Basic

The ladder lets a cook pick the right size for each use. It shows French cooking’s habit of reason and precision.

Japanese kakugiri bends to the dish

Japanese kakugiri aims for a size that is easy to eat in one bite, and for good looks. The size isn’t fixed. The cook adjusts it to the dish.

Size	Name	Use
5 mm (¼ in)	Small kakugiri	Stir-fries, small simmered dishes
1 cm (⅜ in)	Standard kakugiri	Most simmered dishes and stir-fries
2 cm (¾ in)	Large kakugiri	Bigger simmered dishes, curry
3 cm (1¼ in)	Block	Long-simmered dishes

Three cuts make a 1 cm cube

1. Slice the ingredient into slabs 1 cm (⅜ in) thick.
2. Cut the slabs into sticks 1 cm wide.
3. Cut the sticks into 1 cm lengths.

The knife is pulled toward you as it cuts. Japanese cooks use a santoku, an all-purpose knife for vegetables and meat; a chef’s knife does the same job. The rhythm is slow and sure: precision before speed.

Size changes with the dish

Japanese cooks change the size to suit each dish.

Dish	Ingredients	Size	Why
Nikujaga (simmered meat and potatoes)	Potato, carrot	3 cm, 1.5 cm	Each ingredient gets its own size, because they cook at different speeds
Chikuzen-ni (simmered chicken and root vegetables)	Carrot, burdock, konnyaku	About 2 cm	One size cooks evenly and looks neat
Tonjiru (pork and vegetable miso soup)	Daikon, carrot, potato	1–1.5 cm	Bite-sized and easy to eat
Japanese curry	Potato, carrot, onion	2–3 cm	Chunky pieces you can feel

Konnyaku is a firm jelly made from konjac. Daikon is a large, mild white radish.

Four points for clean cubes

• Make the pieces as close to cubes as you can. Rectangles look careless.
• Keep all six faces flat and the corners sharp.
• Cut the same ingredient to the same size, so it cooks evenly.
• Bevel the corners lightly, shaving off the sharp edges, so the pieces don’t break up as they simmer.

French brunoise is 2 mm and exact

Brunoise is a very small, very exact dice of 2 mm. It is a signature of the standardization that Escoffier brought to French cooking.

	Brunoise	Fine brunoise
Size	2 mm	1 mm (under 1/16 in)
Tolerance	±0.5 mm	±0.2 mm
Shape	A perfect cube	A perfect cube

Brunoise starts as a julienne

A good brunoise comes from a good julienne.

1. Square the ingredient into a rectangular block.
2. Slice it into slabs 2 mm thick.
3. Stack the slabs and cut them into a julienne 2 mm wide.
4. Line the julienne up side by side.
5. Cut across at 2 mm intervals.

For julienne sizes, see Julienne vs. Sengiri vs. Chinese Si.

Rocking cut and blade grip

The knife rocks on its tip, rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The grip is the blade grip: thumb and index finger pinch the blade where it meets the handle.

A professional dices a whole carrot into brunoise within 5 minutes. For an intermediate cook, 7 minutes is the target.

Why ±0.5 mm matters

If the pieces aren’t all the same size, they don’t cook evenly. One large piece stays undercooked. In a sauce, every piece should give the same texture.

Dish	Ingredients	Point
Brunoise de légumes	Carrot, celery, turnip	A vegetable brunoise for garnish
Tomato concassé	Tomato	Peeled, seeded, then cut into brunoise
Garnish in sauces	Carrot, celery, shallot	Gives the sauce depth
Garnish in consommé	Carrot, turnip, celery	Floats neatly in a clear soup

The garnish only floats beautifully because the consommé itself is clear.

Four points for brunoise

• Make the julienne perfect first. An uneven julienne gives an uneven brunoise.
• Line the julienne up parallel, with the ends exactly even.
• Use a chef’s knife with a blade of 20 cm (8 in) or more. A smaller knife slows you down.
• Time yourself when you practice, against the targets above.

Chinese ding is sized for high heat

Chinese ding is a fairly large dice of 8–10 mm. It is built for bao chao, stir-frying fast over very high heat, and it puts speed and practicality first.

	Ding	Xiao ding (small ding)
Size	8–10 mm	5–6 mm (¼ in)
Tolerance	±2 mm	±1 mm
Shape	Close to a cube	Close to a cube

Chinese cooking also names its dice by size.

Name	Pinyin	Size	Use
粒	li	3–5 mm (⅛–¼ in)	Fried rice
小丁	xiao ding	5–6 mm	Fine stir-fries
丁	ding	8–10 mm	Standard stir-fries
块	kuai	2–3 cm (¾–1¼ in)	Braised dishes

A straight-down cut with a rhythm

The cleaver comes straight down from above, kept perfectly vertical. You put your weight behind it and let the cleaver’s own weight do the work.

The rhythm is a steady chop, chop, chop. A professional cuts a whole carrot into ding in under 1 minute. Speed matters, but so does precision, and the rhythm keeps both.

Why ding is on the large side

• It stands up to high heat. Too small and it burns, too large and it won’t cook through.
• It balances texture: browned outside, still crisp inside.
• Bigger pieces are faster to cut.

Dish	Ingredients	Size
Kung pao chicken (gong bao ji ding)	Chicken, green pepper, peanuts	All 1 cm, for even cooking
Mapo tofu	Tofu	1.5 cm (⅝ in), a size that doesn’t break up
Black pepper beef (hei jiao niu ding)	Beef, green pepper, onion	1 cm, stir-fried over high heat
Fried rice	Carrot, ham	Li (3–5 mm), the size of a grain of rice

Four points for ding

• Chinese cooks say prep is eight-tenths of the work. Cut every ingredient into ding before you start cooking.
• In kung pao chicken, cut the chicken and pepper to the same 1 cm, matched to the peanuts.
• Use a wen dao (thin slicing cleaver) for vegetables and a wen wu dao (mid-weight cleaver) for meat.
• Cut fast, but keep the size within ±2 mm.

How size, heat, and naming compare

Cuisine	Size	Tolerance	Volume	Ranking
French (brunoise)	2 mm	±0.5 mm	8 mm³	Smallest
Chinese (ding)	8–10 mm	±2 mm	512–1000 mm³	About the same as kakugiri, slightly smaller
Japanese (kakugiri)	1 cm (flexible)	±2–3 mm	1000 mm³	Largest, changed to suit the dish

French dice are the smallest because they chase precision and go into sauces and garnishes. Chinese ding stays about the size of kakugiri because that is the largest size high heat can cook to the center in a short time. Japanese kakugiri is flexible because the size follows the dish and what is easy to eat.

Each size suits a way of cooking

Cuisine	Main cooking methods	Why the size fits
Japanese	Simmering, stir-frying, deep-frying	1 cm is one easy bite, ideal for simmered dishes
French	Mixed into sauces, floated in soups	2 mm is small and blends into a sauce without getting in the way
Chinese	Stir-frying over high heat (bao chao)	8–10 mm stands up to high heat: browned outside, crisp inside

How fixed each set of names is

Cuisine	Standardization	Names	Talking between cooks
French	Very high	Strict (brunoise, macédoine, and more)	The name tells you the size
Chinese	Medium	Clear (ding, li, kuai, and more)	The name tells you the rough size
Japanese	Low	Flexible (kakugiri, size depends on context)	You have to state the size

The culture behind each

Cuisine	Background	Effect on dicing
Japanese	An ideal of harmony, food that is easy to eat	Flexible sizes, adjusted to each dish
French	The court-cooking tradition and Escoffier’s system	Extreme precision; standards let professionals work together smoothly
Chinese	A culture of fire, speed, efficiency, and practicality	Speed first, built for short high-heat cooking

One carrot cut three ways

The setup: one carrot, 15 cm (6 in) long and 3 cm (1¼ in) across, cut by an intermediate-level cook. The comparison looked at time, precision, texture, and the dishes each suits.

Cut	Time	Size	Precision	Texture after stir-frying	Best for
Kakugiri (Japan)	3 min	1 cm	±2 mm	Firm	Simmered dishes, stir-fries
Brunoise (France)	7 min	2 mm	±0.5 mm	Soft, delicate	Sauces, soups
Ding (China)	1 min 30 s	9 mm	±2 mm	Strong bite	High-heat stir-fries

Chinese ding is by far the fastest, because bigger pieces need fewer cuts. French brunoise is the most precise, the result of thorough standardization.

Japanese kakugiri gives the best balance of speed and precision. Each cut is built for a different way of cooking, so they don’t swap well.

Which dice to use for which dish

What you are cooking	Cut	Why
Simmered dishes (nikujaga, chikuzen-ni)	Japanese kakugiri (1–2 cm)	Bite-sized, and holds together in the pot
Garnish in a sauce	French brunoise (2 mm)	Small enough to blend in without getting in the way
High-heat stir-fries (bao chao)	Chinese ding (8–10 mm)	Stands up to high heat: browned outside, crisp inside
Garnish in a soup (consommé)	French brunoise (2 mm)	Floats neatly and cooks evenly
Fried rice	Chinese li (3–5 mm)	The size of a rice grain, so it blends in
Curry	Japanese kakugiri (2–3 cm)	Chunky pieces with substance

A practice plan for all three

Beginners take about 1–3 months to learn the basic form of each cut. For a full ladder in one cuisine, see French Knife Skills by Level and Chinese Knife Skills by Level.

Weeks	Practice	Pass mark
1–4	Japanese kakugiri (potato)	1 cm, within ±3 mm, one potato within 3 minutes
5–8	Chinese ding (carrot)	1 cm, within ±2 mm, one carrot within 2 minutes
9–12	French macédoine (5 mm)	5 mm, within ±1 mm, one carrot within 5 minutes

The intermediate stage takes about 3–6 months and brings precision and speed together.

Weeks	Practice	Pass mark
1–8	Japanese kakugiri, faster	1 cm, within ±2 mm, one potato within 2 minutes
9–16	Chinese ding, more precise	1 cm, within ±1 mm, one carrot within 1 minute
17–24	French brunoise	2 mm, within ±0.5 mm, one carrot within 10 minutes

The advanced stage takes about 6 months to 1 year, and the aim is to use every cut freely.

Goal	Pass mark
French fine brunoise	1 mm, within ±0.2 mm, one carrot within 5 minutes
Chinese li	3–5 mm, within ±1 mm, one carrot within 3 minutes
Creative use	Design a dish that uses all three cuts on one plate
Teaching	Teach each cut to a beginner until they can do it

Three dice cuts on one plate

Here is one example: a steak with three garnishes, each diced a different way. The idea is to enjoy the differences in texture and look.

Garnish	Cut	Cooking	Texture
Carrot	French brunoise, 2 mm	Sautéed in butter	Delicate
Potato	Japanese kakugiri, 1 cm	Deep-fried plain	Fluffy
Bell pepper	Chinese ding, 1 cm	Stir-fried over high heat	Crisp

The sauce is a red wine sauce made with the carrot brunoise.

One plate gives three different textures. The difference in size works as a visual accent, and each cut adds its own strength.

Common questions about dice cuts

Which cut should I learn first?

Start with Japanese kakugiri. The pieces are large (1 cm), so they are easy to cut. The tolerance is moderate (±2–3 mm), so you are less likely to give up.

Any chef’s knife or santoku will do, with no special knife. And you see the result quickly in simmered dishes and curry.

Then learn Chinese ding for speed and French brunoise for precision, in that order. Each cut’s character is easier to grasp that way.

Does brunoise really have to be 2 mm?

In a professional kitchen, yes: exactly 2 mm. One large piece stays undercooked. Pieces of different sizes give a sauce mixed textures. And when a cook says “brunoise,” everyone knows it means 2 mm.

At home, an error of about ±1 mm is acceptable.

Ding and kakugiri are the same size. What differs?

The size is almost the same: 8–10 mm for ding, about 1 cm for kakugiri. What differs is the heat each is cut for. Ding is built for bao chao, short cooking over high heat.

At 8–10 mm, ding cooks to the center over high heat without burning. It comes out browned outside and crisp inside. And it is much larger than brunoise, so it is fast to cut, which matters in Chinese cooking.

Japanese simmered dishes cook slowly over low heat, so even 1 cm pieces turn tender.

How fast do professionals cut?

These are professional speeds for one carrot.

Cut	Time
Japanese kakugiri (1 cm)	Within 2 minutes
Chinese ding (1 cm)	Within 1 minute
French brunoise (2 mm)	Within 7 minutes
French fine brunoise (1 mm)	Within 5 minutes

Precision still comes before speed. Even cubes cut slowly are worth more than uneven cubes cut fast.

Should the cut change with the ingredient?

Yes. Each ingredient has a best cut, set by its firmness and how it is cooked.

Ingredient	Cut	Why
Potato	Japanese kakugiri (1–2 cm)	Holds together in the pot, with a fluffy texture
Carrot	Any of the three	Evenly firm, so every cut is easy
Tofu	Chinese ding (1.5 cm)	Large enough not to break up
Tomato	French brunoise (2 mm)	Ideal for concassé, after peeling and seeding
Chicken	Chinese ding (1 cm)	Ideal for stir-fries such as kung pao chicken

How do I dice round vegetables evenly?

A round carrot or potato won’t give even cubes as it is. Each cuisine deals with that differently.

Cuisine	Approach	Priority	Trimmings
Japanese	Trim into a six-sided prism	Good looks, even size	Used in kinpira (stir-fried, simmered strips of root vegetable) or soups
French	Square into a full rectangular block	Strict standard, precision	Sorted and kept for mirepoix and stock
Chinese	Square only the thick part; roll-cut the thin part	Speed, practicality	Roll-cut so nothing is wasted

Japanese cooks start by trimming. They shave the carrot lengthwise into 6 faces, making a hexagonal or square prism. Then they slice at the target size (1 cm), cut sticks 1 cm wide, and cut the sticks into 1 cm lengths.

Every piece comes out the same size, looks clean, and holds together in the pot. About 20–30% of the carrot is trimmed away. Use it in kinpira or in soup.

French cooks square the carrot into a perfect rectangular block for brunoise. They slice it 2 mm thick (a mandoline is fine), cut a 2 mm julienne, then cut it into 2 mm lengths.

The offcuts go into mirepoix (a sauce base with no fixed size), into stock, or into the staff meal. Professional kitchens sort offcuts by use and prep “brunoise carrots” already squared into blocks.

Chinese cooks square the thick part of the carrot (3 cm, 1¼ in, or more across) and dice it. The thin part (3 cm or less) is roll-cut: turned as you cut on the diagonal, called gun dao kuai (滚刀块).

Mixing dice and roll-cut pieces is fine if the sizes match. This saves time. In short high-heat cooking, size matters more than shape, and an uneven shape doesn’t matter if everything cooks evenly.

Potatoes get similar treatment.

Cuisine	How potatoes are handled
Japanese	Small potatoes whole or halved. Large ones trimmed into a six-sided prism, then diced. “Bite-sized” is the guide, so the size is flexible
French	Pommes parisiennes: scooped into perfect balls about 1 cm across with a special scoop. Or squared into perfect cubes. Offcuts go into pommes purée (mashed potatoes)
Chinese	Rarely kept round. Usually cut into strips, as in shredded potato stir-fry (chao tu dou si). When diced, cut large without worrying about shape

Restaurants sort carrots and potatoes into two grades first. Thick, straight ones are “standard size” and go into dice and brunoise. Thin or bent ones go into purées, soups, and stocks.

At home, make a habit of trimming first: shave the vegetable into a prism 2–3 cm (¾–1¼ in) square. Don’t throw the trimmings away. Use them in a stir-fry such as kinpira, in miso soup, or in vegetable soup, and keep a recipe ready for offcuts.

A perfect dice needs that first trimming. Offcuts always happen, so plan where they go. Match how precisely you trim to what the dish needs.

Do only Japanese cooks bevel the corners?

Each cuisine treats beveling very differently. Japanese cooking values it. French and Chinese cooking use other methods.

Cuisine	Beveling	Why	What they do instead
Japanese	Done routinely	Stops pieces breaking up; looks better	Nothing: beveling is the standard
French	Generally not done	Keeps the standard shapes	Blanching (blanchir)
Chinese	Generally not done	Speed first; short high-heat cooking	Passing through oil (guo you)

Japanese cooks bevel for four reasons. The corners would otherwise knock against each other in the moving liquid and crumble. The surface area grows, so flavor soaks in. Rounded corners feel gentler in the mouth. And vegetables with softened corners look refined.

Most cooks shave each corner thin with a knife. At home a vegetable peeler is quicker. There is also a special beveling tool.

Bevel vegetables for simmered dishes: nikujaga, chikuzen-ni, oden (a long-simmered one-pot dish), daikon simmered with yellowtail, and the carrot or turnip in clear soups. Shave about 1–2 mm (about 1/16 in), until the corner no longer feels sharp to the touch.

French cooks rarely bevel. Brunoise and macédoine should be perfect cubes, every one the same shape. Beveling takes time and erodes the benefit of standard cuts.

The vegetables are sautéed, roasted, or mixed into sauces, so they are less likely to break up. Turning (tourner) shaves potato or carrot into a 7-sided barrel shape. That is decorative shaping for looks and even cooking, not beveling, and it isn’t used for dice.

Instead, French cooks blanch the diced vegetables briefly first to firm the surface. Ingredients that break up easily are simply cut larger.

Chinese cooks don’t bevel either. Beveling is slow, and in Chinese cooking speed is everything. A bao chao stir-fry carries no risk of pieces breaking up. The corners are kept for their crisp bite, and the extra work does little for flavor.

Instead, Chinese cooks pass the pieces through oil (guo you) first, which seals the surface so they hold together. Roll-cut pieces have no corners to bevel. Fragile ingredients such as tofu are cut into a larger ding (1.5 cm).

The background differs too. Japanese cooking simmers many dishes slowly over low heat, its seasoning is delicate, and crumbled pieces cloud the flavor. Sharp corners are considered unattractive, and rounded shapes beautiful.

French cooking values standards, from Escoffier’s system. Vegetables often go into sauces, where breaking up does no harm, and steps that add nothing are cut to keep the kitchen efficient.

Chinese cooking is built on fire: short cooking over high heat. Huo hou (火候, the control of heat and timing) matters most, so prep is fast. Steps that barely change the flavor are dropped.

Bevel when you make Japanese simmered dishes, cook anything for 30 minutes or more over low heat, or want Japanese food to look its best. Skip it for any stir-fry (including Japanese ones), short high-heat cooking, pieces mixed into sauces, or when you are short of time.

To save time, use a peeler instead of a knife. Bevel only large pieces, not small dice. Bevel only the ingredients that break up easily, such as potato and kabocha squash.

Beveling reflects Japanese cooking’s culture of simmering and its sense of beauty. French cooking puts standards first and Chinese cooking puts speed first, so neither usually bevels. Each culture has its own way to keep pieces whole, and beveling is just one of them.

Choose the dice by its purpose

One cut, the dice, carries each cuisine’s thinking. Japanese kakugiri uses flexible sizes for easy eating and good looks. French brunoise uses extreme precision for standards and efficiency. Chinese ding uses speed and practicality, built for short high-heat cooking.

Four things are worth learning. Know why each size and tolerance exists. Pick the right cut for each dish. Understand the culture behind each cut. And combine all three to create new dishes.