When was the last time you sharpened your kitchen knives? If you are like me (and probably most people) the answer is never. I know I always wish my knives were sharp but never really think about it until I am using my knives and that is one thing that excited me about doing this Knife Aid review.
If you have tried to sharpen your knives at home you are most likely doing more harm than good. There are very few home knife sharpeners that actually do a good job and those are fairly expensive. The little $20 sharpener in your drawer isn’t really doing much. Now if you have a whetstone and know what you are doing that is a different story but not a story for today.
Getting your knives professionally sharpened is really the only way to get really sharp knives. There is a professional knife sharpener here in town that is great and he did wonders with my big meat slicer but he is all the way on the other end of town so it would take about an hour and a half to take my knives up to him, get them sharpened, and get home. I would guess most people don’t even know where to get their knives sharpened in their town.
So what is a person to do? That is where Knife Aid comes in.
Disclosure: This post is monetized with affiliate links. If you buy something through them I earn a commission which helps support this site and lets me buy more meat so I can write about it.
Knife Aid Review
Knife Aid is a mail order knife sharpening service. You decide how many knives you want sharpened, they send you an envelope and some knife protectors, you ship your knives to them, they professionally sharpen your knives, and send them back to you. And all this happens usually within 4-7 days.
Knife Aid sent me a 5 knife package to try out and it came with the above instructions. All in all the process was very simple. Pick the knives you want sharpened, package them up, and they come back professionally sharpened. This Knife Aid review was as simple as can be.
The package comes with some protective sleeves you put around your blades when you send them in. You can send in paring knives, chefs knives, bread knives, serrated knives, cleavers, steak knives, pocket knives, and even scissors. Wustof, Victorinox, Cuisinart, Cutco, Shun, Global, Tojiro, Henkles, and all other brands can be sharpened. Knife Aid can sharpen pretty much any knife you have in your kitchen as long as it is less than 16 inches long.
I sent mine in on a Tuesday and they came back the following Tuesday. Monday was a holiday so maybe they could have come a day earlier.
Knife Aid sharpens their knives by hand on air cooled ceramic belts. Every knife is different and their experienced knife sharpeners know if your blade needs a 15 degree bevel or a 20 degree bevel. They can even fix damaged blades.
Knife Aid offers 5 different packages depending on how many blades you want sharpened:
4 Knives – $59 – $14.75 per knife
5 Knives – $69 – $13.80 per knife
7 Knives – $89 – $12.71 per knife
10 Knives – $119 – $11.90 per knife
14 Knives – $149 – $10.64 per knife
And if you use code CCKNIFE you will save $10 off those prices so it is just $49 to start with a 4 knife package.
Shipping is included in those prices as well so there won’t be any hidden charges. That is the amount you will pay. I was very impressed with the service overall, the ease of packaging and shipping, and the speed in which my knives got back to me.
And if you don’t want to be without your knives send them away right before you go on vacation. When you get home you will have a nice, sharp set of knives waiting for you.
How Sharp are the Knives from Knife Aid?
Of course you want to know how sharp the professionally sharpened knives from Knife Aid are. Here are the 5 knives I sent in:
The knife on the bottom is my Dexter boning knife and the other 4 are Cutcos. The top is my 10 inch serrated slicer, then my 7 inch Santoku, my heavy duty serrated prep knife, and a paring knife.
I have two of those Dexter knives so when I made a batch of pork belly burnt ends I used both of them to cube up the pork belly:
The knife I had sharpened by Knife Aid was definitely sharper. Since pork belly is so fatty it doesn’t generally slice super easy, especially with a dull knife. The sharpened knife was able to cut through the belly with just one pull across the meat. The unsharpened one took a few slices back and forth.
I also used the sharpened boning knife to cut up a Costco rotisserie chicken. Usually my knives have trouble cutting through the breast skin without pulling it off the meat but this super sharp knife went right through it with no issues:
Then it was time to have some fun. Of course I cut some tomatoes and the Santoku knife went through the tomato with just two slices. My unsharpened chef’s knife took 6 strokes. I chopped some celery effortlessly, I peeled an apple, I cubed up a sweet potato, and I used the slicer to easily slice through some bread. These knives were definitely sharp and probably sharper than when they were new.
Of course I did the standard sharp tests like cutting paper and shaving the hairs on my arm and scraping my fingernails and the knives performed great. And I have a bald spot on my arm to prove it. I don’t know how these knives would do with some of the crazy sharpness tests I have seen but they can easily handle anything you can throw at it in the kitchen.
Sharp knives are definitely more fun to cook with than dull knives. Sharp knives are also safer since there is less chance of them slipping off of the food. And a nice sharp knife can give you a much cleaner presentation.
Sharp knives make trimming up cuts of meat like a brisket or tri tip much easier than trying to do it will a dull knife. A good, sharp slicing knife will let you easily cut through a crusty loaf of bread without squishing it.
When I researched knife sharpening it seemed like the really hardcore knife sharpening guys weren’t a fan of how Knife Aid sharpens their knives but these are the guys who have a bunch of different whetstones and sharpen their knives multiple times per year. They say the belt method of sharpening takes off a bit too much metal and heats up the blade too much. I could see that being an issue if you sharpen your knives multiple times per year but for most of us that might get knives sharpened once a year or once every 5 years it isn’t that big a deal.
I did notice the serrations on the serrated knives were a bit smaller than when I sent them in but that is to be expected. The blade of the boning knife also looked a bit smaller than the non-sharpened one but only slightly.
The price per knife (~$13 per knife) is more expensive than a local professional knife sharpener ($6-9 per knife) but it definitely is more convenient. But saving $10 on your order with code CCKNIFE brings that price even lower.
All in all I would recommend Knife Aid without hesitation. I had a great experience overall with this Knife Aid review. The knives are definitely sharp, the service is easy to use, and the price is reasonable. Could my local knife sharpener get the knives sharper? Maybe. But definitely not as convenient. Get your knives sharper than they probably have ever been with Knife Aid.
