When should I change my knife?


When should I change my knife?
I already spoke to you in a previous post about knives, those without which nothing is possible (or almost) in the kitchen, so I'm going to come back to them a bit and try to answer the question "When should I change my knife?
15 K 4.7/5 (15 reviews)
Grade this page:
Last modified on: November 2nd 2017
For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend
When should I change my knife?
You may remember how important it is to pay a lot of money for your knives, and to choose models with a stainless steel blade, a handle made of a composite material often called "plastic", etc. This is still true, and I dwell a little on the blade, which being made of steel, with time dulls, sharpens and must therefore be regularly sharpened. This is always true, and I dwell a little on the blade, which being steel, with time dulls, de-sharpens and must therefore be regularly sharpened.

The best way to do this is to use a sharpener, and in an elegant gesture (but unfortunately not easy to catch) you sharpen the blade again. To make a long story short, you should always have razor-sharp knives, it's always much more pleasant to cook with.

Let's come back to this knife sharpening, it turns out that in the gesture of sharpening, one naturally accentuates one's effort on the middle-lower part of the knife blade, and therefore it is there that the wear will be the fastest. This wear can be seen over time, it creates in the blade of the knife, very slowly, a small hollow, a slight curvature, which you can see on this photo (red arrow):

used knife



This hollow, if visible, is a sign that your knife is at the end of its life in "kitchen" mode: You will find it difficult to sharpen it, more and more, so it will cut less well, and will not be ideal for cooking.

To make a comparison, see these 2 knives side by side:

worn knife vs. new knife



The top one is new, the bottom one has lived well, note the hollow of the blade at the bottom, and the nice rounding of the top one.

It's time to change the bottom one, of course you shouldn't throw it away, but use it for something else than cooking (garden, DIY, ?) or recycle it.

Well, it's not always easy, we are often attached to our tools, that we have well in hand, but it is necessary to take the step, the old knives even if they have a sentimental value, can become a brake to your good cooking.


To sum up: When the blade of your knife starts to get hollow, it is time to think about changing it.

Lasts posts
Oven height
Oven height
When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8th 20257425
The importance of sieving
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3rd 20256,5843
The grease spray
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26th 20255,9945
Cake moulds
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25th 20256,1835
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20254,3505

Other pages you may also like
Should a sausage be pricked before cooking?
Should a sausage be pricked before cooking?
If you are using sausages in a recipe, you may have already asked yourself the question: Should you prick it before cooking it, or not? You will certainly find as many opinions "you should prick" as "you should not". Let's try to untangle all this.
September 29th 201847 K4.1
Coarsely chopped herbs
Coarsely chopped herbs
Although we are in the middle of winter as I write these lines, you should not hesitate to make salads at this time, it is actually quite simple, rather fast, and so pleasant. A while ago, I already told you that a salad is a salad, but a salad with herbs is immediately something much better:...
January 9th 202114 K4.9
The first breads of humanity?
The first breads of humanity?
I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when? Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.
February 16th 201913 K5
 The super powers of cornstarch
The super powers of cornstarch
I start this new year by evoking an old product, that you most probably have in your cupboards, a white powder, often in a small cardboard package with a slightly outdated look, only the "gluten free" is relatively recent, it is simply cornstarch, hence its name of maïzena. It's used for a lot...
January 14th 202214 K
Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!
Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!
When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy. It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see...
June 19th 202312 K5
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

Follow this page (as 3 people already do)
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page