When you have a leveled-up kitchen with all the appliances and equipment you need to cook all of your favorite meals make sure that you don’t ignore your knives. A good set of kitchen knives is essential if you are serious about your home cooking. To cook like a chef you need knives like a chef.
Then, when you have yourself a set of excellent knives you have to keep them in good shape. If you don’t then you run the risk of an injury or even broken or ineffective knives that you paid a lot of money for. In this article, we will go over the steps you need to take to maintain your kitchen knives.
#1. Sharpen them up
A sharp kitchen knife is extremely important. Dull knives are a recipe for a serious injury. The issue is that you end up using more force than you should use to cut things and this leads to slips that can have you cut yourself.
Keeping your knives sharp will keep you safe and also make your prep work go much faster. You can send your knives out to be sharpened but you will need to have two sets of knives for this. It can take a while to get your knives back when you send them out and can’t be without them.
Sharpening them yourself is a skill that you should learn so you can save money and time. You’ll need a good sharpening stone and a tutorial on Youtube to help you learn how to sharpen them yourself. It will take some practice but once you learn the skill you will be so glad that you did.
Try to avoid those electric knife sharpeners since they don’t really do a good job even though there will seem like there’s a difference in how they cut.
#2. Don’t wash them in the dishwasher
A good way to ruin your knives is to put them in the dishwasher. The edge will get dull from the soap that is used as it is different from the regular dish soap. You also risk the handle getting ruined as the water will get inside. The heat from the machine will expand the material on the handle and allow water to get inside.
The best thing you can do to make sure that your knives stay sharp and last a long time is to wash them by hand. Use regular dish soap and warm water. Make a soapy mix with the water and gently wash the knives in the sink. Then dry them off carefully with a towel and put them away.
#3. Store them the right way
Putting your knives in a common drawer with other utensils is dangerous and bad for your knives. The edge will get dinged and this will cause it to get dull and possibly rusty. The best thing to do is to have a dedicated storage spot. A magnetic strip on the wall is ideal as it keeps the knives sharp and within reach. Another good idea is a wooden block where you can keep the knives.
