Essential Kitchen Knives and how to sharpen your knives

Nellie Kerrison

31 July 2024

Essential Kitchen Knives and how to sharpen your knives – A photo of my most used knives in our home kitchen

Essential Kitchen Knives and how to sharpen your knives

Today I’d love to share with you my essential kitchen knives and also how to sharpen your knives. I will also share how I like to store my kitchen knives. I get asked about this topic a lot in my cooking classes & workshops. I have also pulled some of the info I shared last year in our knife skills class inside our awesome cooking club that I am sharing here with you. You will find it at the end of this shared post and it will provide you with a fairly comprehensive list & explanation of the various kitchen knives and there purpose. Please note that NONE OF THIS IS SPONSORED. What I am sharing below is just what goes on in my kitchen & I hope you find it useful.

These are some of my knifes here (pictured above in the main header image) in our own home kitchen.

From left to right:

My small serrated small Vitronox knife – One of the most useful & most used knives in our kitchen.
Next are a couple of pairing knives I have more than one because they’re so useful. I could, of course, just clean the one I am using but I do love having a back up.
My serrated knife. One of the top three knives used in our home & likely yours too.
My “backup” chef’s knife is next in line & this is my MAC. It is a great knife. Used by the whole family.
My favourite chef’s knife is my Japanese Santoku Kai Shun. I absolutely love this knife and it is my most used knife. TBH – No one needs two chef’s knives, but because I own a cooking school & write cookbooks, I actually do need more than one…..but you perhaps don’t need to, truly. One is all you need.
Another incredible chef’s knife is the wooden handle French knife on the end. This is a beautiful knife and sharpens so well. Annie Smithers put me on to these Le Theirs knives when she was teaching cooking classes with me quite a few years back. I also have the Le Theirs little pairing knife. It’s wonderful.

IF I COULD ONLY HAVE THREE KNIVES (WHICH IS ALL I THINK ANYONE ACTUALLY NEEDS): I’d go with my Shun Chef’s knife, my pairing knife & my serrated knife.

STORING MY KNIVES: My preferred way to store knives is a magnetic rack on our wall (see photo). A magnetic rack can help to avoid blades becoming blunt or damaged by the drag on say, a wooden storage block. A magnetic rack also helps to give you some precious bench space back.

HOW I KEEP MY KNIVES SHARP: I get our knives professionally sharpened at least once a year (but usually twice) and twice or three times a year for our cooking school knives. I use a great guy named Peter who comes to us & sharpens them in his mobile van. He also frequents many of the farmers markets in Melbourne so you can take your knives to your local farmers market & get your sharpened too (take your scissors whilst you are there too).

There are quite a few places who provide knife sharpening. Do some research & do look at reviews. You could also learn to master sharpening your knives with a whetstone. This is something that we taught in a class online a while back inside our cooking club. It was excellent.

I maintain my knives by honing them with a steel each time I cook.

Honing doesn’t actually sharpen the knife. Instead, it straightens out the edge and smooths any microscropic burrs.

It will make your knife feelsharper and make it easier to use & to work with and it can help to extend the time in between getting them professionally sharpened.

And although I am sure you know this, it is worth adding that your good knives should never, ever be washed in the dishwasher. Washing knives in the dishwasher can cause them to become blunt due to the high-pressure water jets and abrasive detergents. These factors can damage the knife’s edge, dulling it more quickly than hand washing would. The intense heat and moisture can also affect the handle and compromise the knife’s overall integrity.

And my last little tip – You should also be kind to your knives by scraping the board with the blunt side and not the sharp blade.

And because I am feeling generous 😉 I am also sharing this Pdf article also on essential kitchen knives and how to sharpen your knives. It is a handy resource that I shared with my awesome cooking club a while back when we did an online class together on knife skills, techniques and much more.

I’d love to know what your favourite knife is. Let me know in the comments. And if you’d love to trial our cooking club for a month, there’s no lock in contract – more details below.

Love Nellie

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- I would love to offer you inside kitchen tips, workshops & dinner inspiration every single week. Come and check out our RM Cooking Club. The cooking club recipes, cookbooks and classes are not shared here in this more public space but instead, are share inside the cooking club community & members platform. So if you love what you enjoy here, I think you will absolutely love what our cooking club has to offer you. Explore here or feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.

- - P.S – If you would love to learn more about our food tours this year (they are going to be absolutely incredible), please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email or check out our tours page this way. This year we are off to Puglia, Italy.