The short answer is to use good quality Japanese
Best and easiest are usually mutually exclusive. Best is by using diamond or Japanese stones of varying grit and doing this by hand. Easiest is to use a guide tool, pull through sharpener, or electric sharpener. I highly discourage the latter two, as they will prematurely wear your knives out.
A sharpening stone, also known as a whetstone is a kitchen essential used by professional chefs across the globe. While honing rods take slightly less time to maintain knives than whetstones, they are incredibly durable and resilient and help your knife cut through any type of meat, fruit, or vegetable.
You should push the sharpened edge toward/across the stone,not pull it backwards. Often the reason knives seem dull is because the microscopic edge of the blade has curled over on itself (a kitchen steel corrects this and is often overlooked in favor of unnecessary sharpening).
For chef's knives, opt for a whetstone or electric knife sharpening tool.
Pull-through sharpeners are the most popular way to sharpen knives, and with good reason: They are quicker than whetstones and more precise than sharpening steels. However, they shed the most amount of metal, which weakens the durability of knives.
How to use a Manual Knife Sharpener: Place the knife against the coarse side of the sharpener and swipe it across the surface around ten times. This initial step sets the foundation for a sharp edge. Afterwards, switch to the fine side of the sharpener and repeat the swiping motion ten times.
Common mistakes include twisting, pressing down or pausing the stroke of knives as you pull them through the sharpener slot. This can cause oversharpening (the loss of too much metal) or result in an uneven edge.
Electric pull through sharpeners remove way too much metal and shorten the life of your knife by years. Ceramic wheel sharpeners tend to take chips and chunks out of thin Japanese blades. Because of the mechanics of use, it is impossible to apply the same amount of pressure throughout the blade.
While these are both considered sharpening tools, this is actually a common misconception; While a whetstone is primarily used to sharpen and reform the edge of a knife, honing steel is not a sharpening tool and it's actually used to realign curled edges, this is where the misconception often arises.
Start at the tip of the blade, and draw the blade backward moving the blade spine forward, rather than moving the blade edge forward.
A honing steel and a whetstone are not only the best tools for the job, but they're cheap.
A whetstone is a block of rough stone that acts as an abrasive against metal and is the most traditional way to sharpen a knife. It can give you incredible precision and a better edge than any machine method, but it takes a lot of practice to hold the right angle and use one correctly.
The last step in sharpening is removing the burr – the hide side of an old leather belt will do, or buy a strop such as this one. A bit of baby oil on the leather will help you get a nice, even covering of the polishing compound. As with most things, you get what you pay for.
To sharpen your knives at home, you can use an electric sharpener or a whetstone (also called a sharpening stone). Electric sharpeners require little effort on your end, but stones are generally the preferred choice since they're gentler on blades, relatively inexpensive, and easy to use.
Most pros would agree that pulling the blade edge across the whetstone produces the best results. Not only will it bring the knife to its sharpest but it's also a much more effective way to remove chips and imperfections from the blade.
17 to 22 Degree Angles
Most western knives are roughly 20 degrees. In fact, a 20 degrees angle is often considered the best sharing point for most knives. It is our experience that kitchen knives sharpened to 17 to 20 degrees cut very well and are still durable.
The SHAPTON Ha No Kuromaku Ceramic Whetstone Set was the clear whetstone winner. It's an easy-to-use, two-stone set that quickly sharpens carbon and stainless steel knives. If you must use an electric knife sharpener, I recommend the Work Sharp Ken Onion Knife Edition Sharpener.
Over-sharpening a knife can actually damage the edge and make it duller. It's important to sharpen a knife only when it needs it, and to sharpen it to the correct angle.