Should You Wash Raw Chicken? (No — Here's Why)

No — you should not wash or rinse raw chicken before cooking. Running water over raw poultry doesn't remove bacteria; it sprays Campylobacter and Salmonella up to a metre across your sink, taps, bench and nearby food. Cooking chicken to 75°C in the centre is what makes it safe. Washing only spreads harmful bacteria around your kitchen and raises the risk of food poisoning. Key takeaways: Do not wash or rinse raw chicken — water droplets carry Campylobacter and Salmonella across your sink, taps and bench, spreading contamination rather than removing it.. Washing does nothing that cooking doesn't do better. Cooking chicken to a core temperature of 75°C reliably kills the bacteria that cause food poisoning.. Campylobacter is one of the most common causes of gastro in Australia, and raw and undercooked poultry is a leading source.. Prevent cross-contamination instead: use separate boards and utensils for raw poultry, and wash and sanitise anything raw chicken touches.. In a commercial kitchen, rinsing raw poultry is a cross-contamination hazard your food safety program should specifically prohibit.. The short answer: never rinse raw poultry It is a long-standing habit in many kitchens to hold chicken under the tap before cooking, often to remove slime or "freshen it up". Food safety authorities are clear that this does more harm than good. Washing raw chicken does not make it cleaner or safer, and it does not remove the bacteria that cause illness. The only thing that reliably destroys the harmful bacteria on raw poultry is heat. If you cook chicken until the centre reaches 75°C, you have dealt with the risk. Rinsing beforehand adds nothing except the chance to spread germs to surfaces and other foods that won't be cooked. The advice applies to whole birds, fillets, thighs, wings, mince and marinated pieces alike. Pat poultry dry with paper towel if you need a dry surface for browning — but do it without running water over the meat. How rinsing sprays Campylobacter and Salmonella around your kitchen Raw chicken commonly carries Campylobacter and, less often, Salmonella. When water hits the surface of the meat, it breaks into tiny droplets that bounce and aerosolise. Studies of home and commercial sinks show these droplets can travel well beyond the sink — onto taps, splashbacks, draining boards, tea towels, and any food or clean dishes sitting nearby. Those surfaces then become a reservoir. You touch the tap to turn it off, wipe your hands on a towel, or set a salad bowl down next to the sink, and the bacteria move onto food that goes straight to the plate without cooking. This is classic cross-contamination, and it is exactly how a single raw chook can make a whole household or a table of customers sick. It takes very few Campylobacter cells to cause illness, so even an amount you can't see is enough. Keeping the bacteria contained on the meat — where cooking will destroy them — is far safer than releasing them into a fine spray across your work area. Cooking kills the bacteria — washing doesn't The reason washing feels reassuring is that it looks like cleaning. But surface bacteria on raw poultry are not stuck-on dirt you can rinse off; they are living organisms that only heat, and not tap water, will kill. Cook chicken until the thickest part reaches 75°C in the centre. Use a clean, sanitised probe thermometer inserted into the deepest point, away from bone. Juices running clear is a rough visual cue, but a thermometer is the only way to be sure — especially with thick fillets, stuffed birds and bone-in pieces. The same 75°C target applies when you reheat cooked chicken. And because bacteria multiply fastest between 5°C and 60°C — the temperature danger zone — keep raw poultry cold (at or below 5°C) until it goes in the pan or oven, and hold cooked chicken at or above 60°C if it isn't served straight away. What to do instead of washing You don't need to clean raw chicken before cooking — you need to handle it so that it never touches anything that won't be heated. The goal is simple: contain the raw meat and its juices, then destroy the bacteria with heat. Good raw-poultry handling comes down to separation and sequencing. Keep raw chicken and its packaging away from ready-to-eat food, prepare it on dedicated equipment, and clean up thoroughly the moment you've finished. If a recipe calls for a "clean" surface on the meat, pat it dry with disposable paper towel and bin the towel immediately. The steps below walk through a safe sequence from fridge to pan. Clean and sanitise everything raw chicken touched Because you're not rinsing the meat, the focus shifts to cleaning up afterwards. Anything that touched raw chicken or its juices — boards, knives, tongs, plates, the sink, the bench and your hands — needs to be cleaned and then sanitised. Wash items in hot, soapy water to physically remove residue first, then apply a sanitiser and allow the required contact time before rinsing or air-drying. Cleaning removes the grime; sanitising reduces the bacteria left behind. Doing only one of the two leaves a gap. Wash your hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds after handling raw poultry, and again after taking out the bin or touching packaging. Use paper towel rather than a cloth tea towel to dry your hands and wipe surfaces near raw chicken, since a damp reusable cloth can carry bacteria from one job to the next. Why this matters even more in a commercial kitchen In a food business, rinsing raw poultry isn't just a personal habit — it's a cross-contamination hazard that can put customers at risk and breach your obligations under the Food Standards Code. Standards 3.2.2 and 3.2.2A require businesses to handle food safely and control hazards like the spread of pathogens from raw to ready-to-eat foods. Build the "don't wash raw chicken" rule into staff training and your food safety program. Pair it with colour-coded boards and utensils for raw meat, a clear layout that keeps raw poultry prep away from salad and garnish stations, and a documented clean-and-sanitise routine for surfaces and equipment. Safe Food Australia (the FSANZ guidance to Chapter 3) sets out how to meet these requirements in practice. It reinforces the same fundamentals home cooks rely on: separate raw and ready-to-eat foods, keep poultry out of the temperature danger zone, and cook to a safe core temperature. Checklist: Chicken kept at or below 5°C until cooking. No rinsing — patted dry with paper towel if needed. Separate board, knife and tongs used for raw poultry. Cooked to 75°C core, checked with a clean probe thermometer. All surfaces, equipment and hands cleaned then sanitised. Cooked chicken held at or above 60°C or cooled with two-stage cooling. Common mistakes: Rinsing chicken "to be safe" — it spreads bacteria instead of removing them.. Turning off the tap or drying your hands on a tea towel after handling raw chicken, transferring bacteria to a surface you'll reuse.. Judging doneness by colour alone instead of checking a 75°C core temperature with a thermometer.. Wiping the bench with a damp cloth that already touched raw poultry, smearing bacteria across a wider area.. Cleaning surfaces but skipping the sanitising step, or sanitising without cleaning off residue first.. Prepping salad or garnishes on the same board or next to where raw chicken was handled..