Of course, you can always cut a pizza with a knife, but a pizza cutter is simply the best way to cut pizza. A knife may encounter resistance at various points in the topping, forcing the knife to saw or crush the pizza.
With a pizza cutter, the slicing action doesn't have the friction of a knife, and perfectly slices through cheese and toppings, so your pizza toppings stay in place. You get a clean cut and perfect slices without crushing the crust.
Of course, this only works if your pizza cutter is sharp, and these cutters can be a bit tricky to sharpen. The wheel mechanism makes it a bit more challenging to stabilize, so let's learn how to sharpen a pizza cutter.
How to Sharpen a Pizza Cutter?
Pizza cutters are typically made with stainless steel blades, and have a bevel on one side. They are usually not especially sharp, but they do not need to be razor sharp in order to be effective.
Remember that you always want to make sharpening motions moving outward, away from the center of the wheel.
Before you begin to sharpen your pizza cutter, it's a good idea to put a piece of tape on the flat/non-beveled side of the wheel and draw an arrow on it. That will give you a reference point, so you will know when you have made a complete rotation of the blade.
Finally, always wash the cutter before and after sharpening.
Sharpening a Pizza Cutter with a Knife Sharpener
If you have a draw-through knife sharpener, you can use that to sharpen a pizza cutter. Simply use the tips of your fingers on the flat part of the wheel to stabilize it and prevent it from turning, and draw it through the sharpener. Rotate a bit, and repeat. Keep doing this until you have gone all the way around the wheel.
Sharpening a Pizza Cutter with a Honing Steel
Using a honing steel is faster than using a draw-through sharpener, because you can address more of the blade edge at once. To sharpen a pizza cutter with a steel, hold the cutter in your left hand, with the beveled side up, and two fingers stabilizing the back side of the wheel, so that it is stable and flat in your hand.
Use your right hand to hold the steel at an angle that matches the bevel of the cutting edge of the cutter's blade, with the base of the steel near the cutting edge.
Draw the steel upward and outward along the cutting edge, so that your right hand is completing a diagonal motion away from the blade, as you draw the steel along the edge. Repeat 3-4 times, then rotate the wheel and repeat.
Because you are moving the steel both upward and outward, you are accessing more of the cutting edge than with a draw-through sharpener, so you may only need to complete 4-5 rotations to get completely around the wheel.
Then flip the wheel over, with the flat side of the blade facing up, and use the steel to go over the reverse edge, one time, all the way around. This will remove any burr.
Conclusion
Sharpening a pizza cutter is fast and easy, and helps it work much cleaner and faster.