I was reading an article about food cross-contamination, and it said that in test group of 300 people who were asked to prepare raw chicken, 61% of the washed it in the sink first. Some even used soap, lemon juice or vinegar in their washing regimen.
I have never heard of such a thing. I just use common sense about not reusing utensils that have been used on raw chicken, and cooking thoroughly to kill bacteria.
Do you wash your chicken before cooking?
PTF
I’ve heard about it, I’ve known people to do it, but I’ve also known for a long time it just splashes contaminated chicken juices everywhere. Just cook the chicken, any icky juices will cook along with it, and you’re good. And have less chicken juice to clean up from the rest of the kitchen.
(Now, if you butchered the chicken yourself and plucked it and had to deal with pin feathers by singing them off rinsing makes some sense to get rid of extra blood, lingering innard bits, and feather soot but most people don’t do that stuff themselves these days.)
Oh, god yes. I rinse raw chicken. I have raw
meat phobia. I dont know if that’s a real thing. I just know I feel it.
Don’t, it can actually cause you to spread bacteria unnecessarily.
Aaaaccckkk!
I don’t wash it, but I definitely dry it, just patted with paper towels. Dry meat cooks way better than wet meat (for dry cooking methods, obviously).
I have but not every time. It’s when the chicken feels especially sticky or slimy or there’s a lot of liquid in the package. I usually brine or marinade chicken so it’s getting wet either way.
I think I did when I started learning to cook. I don’t anymore. As far as I know it’s just to get rid of some of that slimy/slippery stuff, but I’ve never noticed any difference one way or the other. And as others said, I’d prefer not to get raw chicken all over everything in my sink.
Personally, I put on a disposable glove, use the gloved hand to open the package, do whatever I need to do to the chicken and place it in the cooking vessel. Then I can throw out the glove with no (well, little) concern about any food born illnesses on my hands that may get onto other foods that won’t be cooked and/or work surfaces or eating utensils. Don’t even have to wash my hands.
I rinse it with cool tap water.
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No no no no.
Potentially contaminated chicken versus potentially contaminated sink plus anything that gets hit by splashing water (which happens even if you don’t see it and think it happens, no matter how careful you think you are being). If you wash your chicken in the sink, do you then immediately clean your sink? If not, you are definitely making things worse. If yes, then you are still possibly making things worse. This needs to go to the same graveyard that “you have to cook pork chops until they are well-done” should be in.
Never saw the point of it. It’s better to just pat dry with paper towels.
It’s kind of silly. The outside of the chicken is going to be heated the most, so any bacteria are going to be killed in the cooking process. The interior might be an issue, but as long as the rest of the chicken is fully cooked, that will also be hot enough to kill bacteria. So what exactly was it accomplishing?
I used to rinse it with cold water. Then I heard about the “splashing contaminated chicken juice” thing, so I don’t any more.
Gonna cook this sucker up, KILL all that bacteria!
I know you’re not supposed to, but I do. Rinse with water, then pat dry with paper towels. I do the same thing with fish.
I voted no, but there are circumstances where I will: if I’ve been soaking the chicken in a super salty solution, I may rinse off the excess salty solution prior to cooking. In general, though, no, I don’t wash any meat.
My wife, though, wants to wash everything.
If your chicken feels slimy, you probably waited to long to cook it.
Whaa…? Fresh packaged chicken is almost always somewhat slimy/slick/slippery. If it’s excessive, I’ll rinse it.
I always wash chicken because there is always something that needs removing from the surface, be it bone grit, pin feathers, or anything else that gets stuck on it at the processing plant. Whole chickens usually have too much lung/other-gunk tissue left inside that I remove by hand-scraping and rinsing. I also find more and more that the plucking machine didn’t work completely and have to pull out stubborn feather “stubs”.
No, there’s a difference. Fresh, raw chicken is slick and slippery as you say, but slime is like a layer of something else that’s slick and slippery. If you leave raw meat in the fridge too long, it will get a bit slimy. The good thing is, you can wash it off and it will be fine.
I used to, but was swayed by the “get icky chicken juice particles all over everything” argument so I don’t anymore. We haven’t gotten food poisoning yet. I also got a fancy meat thermometer that I can stick in it while it’s in the oven and have it go off when it hits 165 degrees, which has added to my peace of mind.