It’s recommended you DON’T wash your chicken because that just throws bacteria around your kitchen.
Cook it thorougly. Use a meat thermometer to be sure and you’ll be fine.
I believe that’s a myth. If you cook thoroughly, you don’t need to worry about bacteria. Why would it matter if its being moved around then?
There sure are plenty of ‘under no circumstances’ articles and testimonials parroting each other.Washing removes the gooey protein film on the surface, which otherwise ends up cooking into a egg-white-like membrane.
You can also wipe it with a paper towel to accomplish the same.
You should, at the very least, always dry your chicken to allow the surface to brown properly. Otherwise you end up with the hospital patient pale white.- reading around, it’s spreading the bacteria from the chicken to the environment thats the problem, so I was wrong there. Paper towel it is from now on.
It’s recommended you DON’T wash your chicken because that just throws bacteria around your kitchen.
I believe that’s a myth. If you cook thoroughly, you don’t need to worry about bacteria. Why would it matter if its being moved around then?
I think they mean that if you wash the chicken before cooking you might propel the not-yet-dead bacteria around your kitchen, which is worse than putting it all in the oven together to kill it.
Yep, you nailed it in your edit. We do exactly that - dry it off with a few paper towels, then roast. As long as you can resist devouring the paper towels or dragging them all over the house (I’m looking at my sleeping dogs as I type this), it’s safe.
Unwashed Chicken is totally safe if you do this one amazing trick.
Cook it properly.
If you don’t know how to do that by sight or touch then buy yourself a instant read thermometer.
Washed chicken won’t be any safer if it’s undercooked, salmonella isn’t a surface only danger, so you can remove the “unwashed” part at the beginning.
Washed chicken is a stupid concept, I was including the unwashed part because that is the default state of uncooked chicken.
Unless you accidentally drop a chicken on the floor and don’t want to waste it, there isn’t a reason to wash it.
Do people wash pork chops? steaks? hamburgers?
I’m confused what they think they’re washing off. If you don’t believe the cooking kills the germs then you’re not cooking it right (or are confused). If you think it’s something that won’t come off with cooking like dirt or dust, then, ew, why are you getting chicken from somewhere that gets it covered in dirt or dust?
I don’t know what this text is going on about. People don’t wash the ‘white shit’ off chicken. Some people think that washing chicken (or poultry in general) reduces the chance of cross contamination due to salmonella. In reality it makes it more likely for cross contamination because it splatters all around your sink and surrounding areas.
It also doesn’t make it taste bland. It’s just useless.
My guess is that Anon made an assumption about what they were attempting to do while washing it off and that night didn’t put a lot of effort into the cooking and also expected it to taste bad.
Sometimes it’s the bacteria that kills you sometimes it’s the poop of the bacteria that kills you. The latter won’t matter if you cook it well or not. But yeah generally it’s useless to wash chicken.
Butcher pubes
ITT: people who undercook their chicken think that washing is what’s saving them when in reality, washing your chicken only enables a host of cross-contamination issues. Congratulations for turning your sink into a biohazard facility.
Rinsing and scrubbing will spread micro droplets a lot further than your sink.
i thought it said “than you sink” and that you were making a German coastguard joke
vat?
Are you sinking about?
This is why I don’t clean the dishes in my sink… Not trying to spread any micro droplets.
Red meat can be eaten rare, because even if the inside is raw, it’s not usually contaminated by anything dangerous, while chicken meat has to be throughly cooked because it’s the opposite… So washing the outside is useless.
Only if it’s a slab of meat, like a steak. Ground meat mixes up all those contaminants, so unless you grind it yourself from a slab with the outsides cut off (still iffy), cook your ground meat thoroughly (medium well is probably enough). You can get away with a sear on pretty fresh steak though.
And then there are the Germans, eating raw ground pork on a bun.
It seems, you can get away with raw meat, if you buy it freshly ground from the butcher.Edit: wrong kind of meat
I’m Italian and I caught toxoplasmosis eating raw sausage ground meat as a kid, sooo…
But I did that for a long time before anything happened.
On a bun? That’s Mett and it’s pork. Yes, ground raw pork. It’s quite tasty. Sprinkle of onion usually.
He’s getting it mixed up with Wisconsin, which does raw ground beef on a bun.
Tratare sandwich? Sounds delicious!
Yeah, as long as the equipment is sterile, and the edges with the bacteria are removed. That’s not happening at your local grocery store.
I buy my filet américain at my local grocery store. It is made of a beef/pork mix (the fancier the more beef) and usually has an expiry date of T+2 days thanks to the added preservatives.
Industrially processing raw meat is perfectly doable, much to the Americans’ utter disbelief. Belgium has entire specialized industrial supply chains for the massive local demand of raw ground meat bread spread.
Certainly, it’s just a lot more work than the less sanitary “chuck the extra meat into the grinder” method we use here.
I’d love to try that raw beef spread BTW. I’ve had beef sashimi before, and it was great.
Wait, you don’t eat chicken medium rare?
If you hold your chicken for ten minutes at temperature, you can cook it medium rare and pink. https://blog.thermoworks.com/chicken-internal-temps-everything-you-need-to-know/
Eww. Also tough so also eww.
What kind of regarded shitfuckery is washing chicken? What u washing off the bacteria that will die by the time the chicken reaches a safe temperature? This just seems like a good way to spread salmonella all over ur sink with no advantage.
Don’t you wash your sink?
Are you crazy? I’ve been seasoning that thing for years, I don’t want to ruin it by washing it!
it should be almost done marinating now. Can’t wait to put it in the oven, next to the dish rack
Only correct reason not to wash it
Lots of people really do.
Losing taste is one thing, but it can actually be dangerous by spreading salmonella&friends.
Didn’t watch the video, but I have a degree in this field. We were taught to always wash chicken, in a separate room. I was given an earful one time when I was working at the kindergarten kitchen when I forgot to wash chicken thoroughly.
Edit: I should notice, all my comments apply to a factory setting and business grade kitchens. Multiple people corrected me that cooking at home is different and you should not wash your chicken at home kitchen.
You’ll have to be more specific about what “this field” is. Restaurant sanitation? Food safety? Chicken washing? Microbiology?
Whatever your degree, it’s not the recommended practice.
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Should-I-wash-chicken-or-other-poultry-before-cooking.You render meat safe to eat by killing the bacteria with fire, commonly called “cooking it”.
Degree is in Food production technology. Sanitation, safety of preparation and storage. Before cooking, meat can go all over working place, and it can contaminate it if not washed.
Sounds like you maybe learned about food preparation in a factory setting, which is different than in a kitchen setting.
Per USDA and CDC guidelines, you shouldn’t wash poultry before cooking because you’re more likely to spread any contamination, you’re unlikely to remove contamination that’s present since it’s not like it just lives on top of the tissue, and it’s already been washed during processing.
Obviously if you’re the party doing the actual processing for distribution then things are different since you need to remove potential traces of feces, dirt or other surface contamination.
Yes, I think there was a miscommunication. You’re correct about the factory setting.
Maybe your should edit your previous messages to mention that it doesn’t apply to a kitchen environment so you don’t spread disinformation.
Thank you, I edited my top comment.
always wash chicken, in a separate room
Oh dang, I’ll have to move to a bigger house. My current home is lacking a chicken washing room.
personally I just use the bull de-horning room for this purpose
I dunno who taught you that, or what dipshit was running a school that allowed it, but the bare fact that it is not only unnecessary, but potentially dangerous, has been known for decades.
deleted by creator
Hang on. You’re telling me, all kindergartens in your area have a separate room, just for washing chicken? Like"Here’s where the kids keep their bags, here’s the toilets, this is the chicken washing room, and over there we keep the crafts."
There a multiple compartments to every kitchen, at least should be to adhere to sanitary documentation. A separate room for washing dishes, a separate room for cleaning vegetables, a separate room for cleaning meat and a separate room for cooking. The cooking room has separated workplaces for different kinds of food to reduce contamination.
everybody else is talking about home cooking, and that it’s not recommended to wash chicken from a supermarket at home. probably in whatever context you have these multiple compartments recommendations are different
I’ll call bullshit on that unless you’re using the wrong words to describe these rooms. I know the field from a cook perspective and no kindergarten has multiple rooms for cooking and meal prep. You’re thinking about the setup in a factory that does food transformation. Transformation and preparation are two completely different things.
Having worked in restaurants for years and been to multiple health and safety classes in multiple states, I call bullshit.
Washing chicken spreads bacteria all over everything wherever it’s done: the walls, floor, ceiling. Do you sanitize the ceiling after you do this?
Listen mate, you can call bullshit all you want, I’m citing official documentation of my country that worked for years, specifically this one “СП 2.3.6.1079-01”, under part VIII, 8.9.
I used to have a roommate that would wash her veggies and meat in the soapy dishwasher freaking disgusting
So that’s why cilantro tastes like that?
I watched a cooking video a few years ago about cooking a whole chicken. In the video it was said “we’re not going to wash the chicken”. I thought just the idea of washing a chicken was strange, so I checked the comments. It was a trainwreck of people being freaked out and disgusted by how she didn’t wash the chicken.
I had to search through several forums and articles afterwards to confirm that I wasn’t insane, and that I hadn’t lived my whole life with disgusting food habits. But the topic of washing a chicken before you cook it is a strangely divided subject.
This is like finding out that there are Flat Earthers that actually believe and it’s not just a satirical joke.
Your chicken should already be clean enough when you unpack it. Just choke it thoroughly and don’t contaminate any surface with its juices.
I do not think I have ever washed any chicken I have prepared, EVER
The only time I wash chicken is after cooking it, and when I drop it on the floor and thing “eh, I can still eat this”
me neither (ive never prepared any chicken)
As a middle aged person who is generally healthy, I’ve never washed chicken. On a side note, we eat chicken weekly. I’ve not experienced diarrhea, or been really sick, or died post chicken eating. I could safely say 1/2 of the days of the year, at least, involve basic butcher parted out chicken, and it is delicious.
Washing a backyard/farm chicken post killing/plucking to remove blood and debris, sure. But what is the logic behind this strange internet trend?
You, like me, probably just cook the chicken properly.
Washed or not, chicken needs to be cooked properly, there’s nothing people do by washing the outside that will kill the salmonella inside the muscle. Hell, cooking will kill it on the surface right away so I don’t know what people think they’re doing by washing the outside!
I could see it in a factory/large kitchen setting, as in:
- Wash chicken in separate area to remove surface bacteria
- Hand off to another chef, repeat 1
The chef then cooks with the chicken, sanitizing hands between steps, and the purpose of washing the chicken is to reduce the amount of bacteria spread between washings. Production kitchens are busy places, and having more checks can help prevent issues if some are skipped/performed inadequately.
It makes no sense in home or small kitchens though and would likely do more harm than good.
I’ve worked in a large kitchen and my girlfriend has worked in kitchens in the healthcare system and nope, your wouldn’t wash chicken in a kitchen environment, maybe in factories where it makes sense to have space for that, but in a kitchen you would never lose space to build something that is basically a cross contamination room.
Yeah, that’s the kind of “big kitchen” I’m talking about. Like a factory or maybe a stadium where you’re serving thousands of people at the same time, and repeatability matters a lot more than quality.
I think it’s just how boomers were raised. I’m middle-aged and I don’t wash chicken, but my boomer mom is horrified at the thought. She came for a visit and made sure I washed the chicken before I cooked with it. 🙄
I’ve not met a single “boomer” that does this.
So weird, maybe it’s just the ones I know. I’m probably stereotyping them!
My parents are boomers and don’t do this. Not a big sample, but it’s what I’ve got.
politics? earth shape? religion? nah, i like to argue about washing or not the chicken when preparing it
washing or not the chicken
Brine don’t wash
Better wash them:
Eating chickens is the most common source of Salmonella poisoning. A 2014 issue of Consumer Reports published that 97 percent of chicken breasts found in retail stores were contaminated with bacteria that could make people sick, and 38 percent of the Salmonella found was resistant to multiple antibiotics. And, according to a national retail-meat survey by the Food and Drug Administration, about 90 percent of retail chicken showed evidence of contamination with fecal matter.
Better not wash them:
My source is the CD Fucking C.
Hostile response tone aside, seriously: cooking chicken kills the bacteria. Trying to wash it just splatters disease around your kitchen.
Are you eating it raw???
Wouldn’t this be eliminated by cooking it
