Skip The Finishing Stone: Sharpen Kitchen Knives With An Affordable Amazon Find

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The long-held culinary adage that a chef is only as good as their ingredients applies to kitchen utensils, too. A dull knife hinders the cooking process, making every movement a little slower, a little less precise. That's why having a reliable knife sharpener on hand can make a difference. Take the Longzon 5-in-1 Knife Sharpener, for example. It's a pull-through knife sharpener that's available on Amazon for $16.99. Some professional knife-sharpening companies charge $5 to $15 per blade, so buying your own sharpener at roughly the same price is generally worth it. While you can certainly find other knife sharpeners at a similarly low price, some cost much more, even surpassing $100 for really high-end ones.

Affordability aside, perhaps the main advantage of the Longzon Knife Sharpener is that it eliminates the prep work, concentration, and effort required from other knife-sharpening methods, like a finishing stone. The item has four sharpening slots, one specifically for kitchen scissors and the other three for varying levels of knife sharpness, and all you have to do is run a knife through the desired slot a handful of times. This makes it ideal for busy home cooks and people with little experience sharpening kitchen knives. Longzon's 5-in-1 Sharpener also works on multiple types of kitchen knives, including fruit knives and chopping knives.

With over 38,000 customer reviews, the Longzon 5-in-1 Knife Sharpener is among Amazon's best-selling knife sharpeners and has a solid average rating of 4.4 out of 5. Many reviewers call it the best knife sharpener they've used, especially when factoring in the low price. "All of my knives were dull, and this worked great at sharpening them," one satisfied shopper wrote, adding, "It only takes a few seconds per knife." It's also worth noting that customers widely say the sharpener doesn't slip when you're using it, which is vital for safety.

When it comes to criticism, several customers say the item doesn't sharpen kitchen scissors as well as knives, either making no discernible difference or sometimes making them feel even duller than before. Customers also mention that the gloves included with the sharpener, which are advertised as cut-resistant, aren't of the best quality and are, in fact, quite susceptible to being cut. Another drawback is that this sharpener is incompatible with both ceramic and serrated knives. However, Longzon has another 6-in-1 Knife Sharpener designed to handle serrated blades (plus bread knives), and it's listed at roughly the same price: $19.99 on Amazon. But if you don't have a major need to sharpen serrated knives, then the 5-in-1 model is a viable option to add to your kitchen equipment arsenal. Either way, routinely sharpening your kitchen knives (at least once or twice a year) is essential to getting the most out of them.