Everything You Need to Know About Washing Meat and Poultry

Washing meat and poultry is a hot topic among home cooks and food influencers. It also is a practice that raises a lot of food safety red flags. But just how serious are the risks? And are there any possible benefits? The answers are more nuanced than you might expect.

Washing raw meat may spread germs (and doesn’t kill them)

Much to the horror of food safety professionals, washing poultry and other meat is a common practice. Some may wash their birds, chops and steaks because they (incorrectly) believe it removes harmful bacteria, others do so because they don't like the goop they sometimes find on pre-packaged parts.

One thing is for certain: Washing meat spreads potentially harmful bacteria throughout your kitchen. Water splashes off the meat and onto your counters, faucet, and who knows where else, contaminating surfaces your meat otherwise wouldn’t touch, as well as any other raw, ready-to-eat foods you might be preparing afterwards.

This isn’t just a theory. In 2019, the USDA conducted an observational study and found that “of the participants who washed their raw poultry, 60 percent had bacteria in their sink after washing or rinsing the poultry. Even more concerning is that 14 percent still had bacteria in their sinks after they attempted to clean the sink.”

It’s also worth noting that washing meat with hot tap water won’t kill any harmful pathogens. According to the USDA, “Cooking to the right temperature (whether frying, baking, broiling, boiling or grilling) kills germs on meat and poultry.” They advise cooking poultry and ground meats to at least 165°F, and beef, pork, veal and lamb steaks, chops and roasts to 145℉. (Yes, many recipes, including some of ours, call for cooking poultry to a slightly cooler temperature. Use your best judgement here.) And if raw meat does come in contact with your sink — and it probably will at some point — they recommend cleaning the sink with soap and water before applying a strong sanitizing solution.

Handling raw meat in the real world

Washing raw meat definitely spreads bacteria around your kitchen (and doesn’t kill any harmful pathogens), but what’s less understood is if washing your poultry is likely to make you sick. Even if you’re not washing the meat directly, most of us open vacuum-sealed packages of chicken thighs or whole birds in our sinks so the accompanying liquid can wash down the drain. We also brine meat in big vats of saline solutions (which has to go somewhere once the brining is over) and stuff butter under skins with our bare hands. Keeping one’s kitchen 100% germ-free at all times simply isn’t possible.

In a 2013 article for Lucky Peach magazine titled “Should You Wash Your Chicken or Not?,” food science writer and self-described “chicken-washer,” Harold McGee pushed back on a “USDA-funded public-relations campaign that warned against washing raw chicken before cooking.”

Back in 2013 — six years before the observational study linked above — all he could find was a report from Campden BRI, an independent British food-research consortium, with the title “Microbiological risk factors associated with the domestic handling of meat.”

“To analyze the risk posed by washing, the authors covered the work surfaces around a sink with paper, coated a chicken with red food dye, washed the chicken for ten seconds, and noted that red spots appeared on the paper as far as seventy centimeters, more than two feet, from the sink. That’s it!” he wrote.

This report and the USDA observational study fell short in a similar manner. Both concluded that some bacteria is spread, but neither provided quantitative data concerning how much bacteria is spread or, as McGee describes it, “actual microbiology to see whether splashing water picks up bacteria and carries them in significant numbers.” And neither discussed “the risk splashing might pose compared to less ambiguous hazards, like handling a leaky supermarket package of raw meat, or not washing hands diligently during cooking, or using the same towel to dry clean hands and not-so-clean countertops.”

McGee decided to conduct his own test using varying water pressure levels and distance between the chicken and the faucet to determine just how far water spreads. You can read his findings here, but he ultimately concluded that it was “possible to wash chicken carelessly, in a way that might spread contamination onto countertops and draining boards and the cook. It’s also possible to wash chicken carefully, in a way that confines its microbes largely to the sink, where other unclean things also get cleaned.”

Washing for taste and texture

A lot of chicken washing (and other meat washing) has nothing to do cleanliness, but with flavor and texture. Milk Street’s Head Recipe Developer, Courtney Hill, recommends briefly rinsing (then patting dry) any meat that has been sitting in its own juices or came from a package with a visible pool of [water and myoglobin] or other liquids. You often see this with vacuum-sealed portions of meat sold in grocery stores. Courtney says that, in her experience, “meat that has a bit of a funk will smell and taste better after a quick rinse.”

It’s important not to let it get waterlogged, however. You shouldn’t soak, and you certainly shouldn’t use any soap or chemical cleaning agents— just give it a brief rinse under cool water. “If you’re purchasing meat from a butcher that’s dry and wrapped in butcher’s paper, however, you shouldn’t need to rinse your meat at all,” she adds.

Washing can also change the texture of a protein. In an interview with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Chris Kimball on an episode of Milk Street Radio, Kenji referenced a Chinese technique that involves vigorously washing the meat in water and wringing it out as hard as you can. He says the difference in texture is enormous, something he chalks up to “mechanical tenderization.” You’ll also wash out a bit of the beefy flavor, which might be “a bad thing in French cuisine, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing in some Chinese cuisines,” explained Kenji. "[In Chinese cuisine] it’s more about the balance of flavors than a concentrated beef flavor."

The best strategies for a safe and clean kitchen

Cross-contamination is a risk to consider, but it’s one you take every time you handle food in your kitchen, from cracking eggs for a morning scramble to spatchcocking a chicken for supper.

The order in which you prep your ingredients can also make a big difference. In the study mentioned above, the USDA found that “of the participants that did not wash their raw poultry, 31 percent still managed to get bacteria from the raw poultry onto their salad lettuce.” Luckily, there’s an easy solution here: Prepare raw, ready-to-eat foods before handling any raw meat or poultry.

And if you simply must wash raw meat, be sure to minimize splashing, and follow USDA guidelines for cleanup. Keep a good, strong sanitizer on hand to disinfect any affected surfaces, wash your hands often, and cook any and all meat to safe temperatures, especially if you will be feeding the very young, very old or immunocompromised. If you don’t consider yourself to be well-versed food safety procedures you can read up on the basicshere. Food safety knowledge isn’t just for restaurant workers, it can help you become a more confident (and a safer) cook.

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Willow Montana

Willow Montana is the Production Manager of Digital Media at Milk Street. Willow spends their days coordinating and planning video shoots, managing schedules and overseeing the execution of digital projects. They studied Baking and Pastry Arts at Johnson and Wales University and worked in restaurants while putting themself through six more years of college. They hold a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in English Literature and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Publishing and Writing. Willow is a firm believer in living a slow, quiet life and making things by hand. When they aren’t following the developers around with a camera at the Milk Street office, they may be found at home shaping loaves of sourdough, caring for dozens of houseplants and, occasionally, out in the wild at a punk rock show.