Keep Your Kitchen Knives Sharp for Safety and Performance

As contrary as it sounds a sharp knife really is a safe knife. It requires less force to cut through food and allows for better control when cutting, preventing the knife from slipping. It's for those reasons knife maintenance should become a regular routine in your kitchen.

The handling and care of your knives plays a large role in maintaining sharpness. Keep your knives in top working order by storing them in trays, wood blocks or another secure storage holder to protect your knives' sharp edges, and to keep you safe.

Carefully hand-wash your knives even if they're dishwasher safe. Dishwashers can be tough on sharp knives as the edges get jostled around in the machine. Knife edges could become damaged and so could your dishwasher.

Under normal use, straight-edge knives require sharpening from time to time, which you can do at home with the proper tools. A hand-held, manual sharpener is an easy way to periodically sharpen straight edge knives. Use it at the first sign that cutting is becoming a little more difficult. A straight-edge sharpener will re-form and re-shape the cutting edge so that it keeps performing, but if you've had your straight-edge knives for a long time, you may want to consider professional sharpening.

Kitchen knives with recessed edges will stay sharp for years because of the blade design. The cutting edges on those knives are protected by points that run along the edge of the blade. The points prevent the sharp cutting area from coming in contact with surfaces like glass and ceramic that can dull knives.

Once a recessed-edge knife becomes dull it can be sharpened by a professional.

When purchasing your knives look for a good guarantee that covers sharpening or repairs. Customers of Cutco Cutlery, for example, have peace of mind knowing that when it comes time to sharpening their knives they can have them sharpened or repaired for free under the Forever Guarantee, with no receipt and no registration required. Cutco has an entire department of skilled professionals dedicated to sharpening and repairing well-loved knives.

Well-maintained knives with a good guarantee will have you happily chopping, slicing and dicing for years to come.