diff --git a/plugins/knife/_knife b/plugins/knife/_knife
index 8453af5be..dec491257 100644
--- a/plugins/knife/_knife
+++ b/plugins/knife/_knife
@@ -170,7 +170,11 @@ _chef_environments_remote() {
 
 # The chef_x_local functions use the knife config to find the paths of relevant objects x to be uploaded to the server
 _chef_cookbooks_local() {
- (for i in $( grep cookbook_path $HOME/.chef/knife.rb | awk 'BEGIN {FS = "[" }; {print $2}' | sed 's/\,//g' | sed "s/'//g" | sed 's/\(.*\)]/\1/' ); do ls $i; done)
+ local knife_rb="$HOME/.chef/knife.rb"
+ if [ -f ./.chef/knife.rb ]; then
+  knife_rb="./.chef/knife.rb"
+ fi
+ (for i in $( grep cookbook_path $knife_rb | awk 'BEGIN {FS = "[" }; {print $2}' | sed 's/\,//g' | sed "s/'//g" | sed 's/\(.*\)]/\1/' ); do ls $i; done)
 }
 
 # This function extracts the available cookbook versions on the chef server