Kitchen Knife Accessories

Once you have a good set of kitchen knives that you really enjoy using, there is always the temptation to accessorize them somehow; show them off in the best light, make sure they look and keep as well as possible.

Unfortunately kitchen knives are not the most accessory-heavy kitchen item, and you may be struggling to find anything beyond the basics. However, if you do have a good set of kitchen knives and you are looking to buy some accessories, you will need to make sure you have the following!

Kitchen Knife Rack or Block

These come in many, many shapes or forms - the most traditional is a wooden block, but nowaways a magnetic knife rack are almost as common. The different types have their advantage; the kitchen knife block keeps your knives in better condition by protecting the blades, whilst the magnetic knife rack takes up far less space on your valuable kitchen work tops. However, this comes with a price as the constant snapping on and off of the kitchen knives from the magnetic rack ultimately has a degrading affect on the blades.

You can also get “in drawer knife racks” which allow you to store your beloved kitchen knives in a horizontal, pre cut wooden block - great if you have a little drawer space to spare.

The important thing is to not store your knives loose in the drawer, as they will clang about and blunt each other, and can be quite a serious safety hazard if you reach in blindly!

You can of course but a block of kitchen knives, so you can kill two birds with one stone. This Shun Knife Block is a great example.

Kitchen Knife Sharpener

As with the kitchen knife storage above, sharpeners can come in different forms. The most iconic - and probably popular - is the sharpening steel, which you see celebrity chefs using at light speed to quickly re-edge their expensive kitchen knives. Remember that this sharpening steels require a lot of practice to be able to use that quickly, and the angle at which you drag the blade down the steel is very important, otherwise you will end up blunting the blade.

Pull through knife sharpeners are another popular choice, and they fix to a work surface and you can simply drag the knife blade through it several times. This is very effective as it forces the angle of your blade to be correct, and will give you a very sharp edge. I personally use an AccuSharp Knife Sharpener which I love, but be careful that you do not wear the knife blade down too quickly.

For the more exotic, you can get sharpening stones which are very good, but require a lot of practice to use correctly. They are also potentially a bit overkill just for the home kitchen!

Accessorize away!

There is not too much else to it, really. A great set of kitchen knives require a good storage system and a solid sharpener - if you have these two things sorted, you’ll be just fine!