Should You Wash Chicken?

Short answer: no, you shouldn’t wash raw chicken. What makes it safe is the temperature inside the meat, 165°F (74°C). Tap water can’t do that, and it throws droplets around the kitchen. If there’s something on the chicken you want to remove, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests patting that spot with a damp paper towel and washing your hands straight away.

It’s a hard habit to break. In 2014 the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) made “don’t wash raw chicken” the theme of its Food Safety Week. At the time, 44% of people in the UK said they always washed chicken before cooking it. In 2025, 40% of respondents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland still washed it at least occasionally, and that share has barely moved since 2022.

How far the splashes go

In 2003 Campden BRI, a British food research center, tested this in a simple way. A whole chicken was covered in red food dye and held under a faucet running at a medium rate, 35 ml per second, for 10 seconds. The area around the sink, the walls, the floor and the draining board were covered with paper, and the spread of the dye was measured three times:

• up to 70 cm to the right of the sink;
• up to 60 cm to the left;
• up to 50 cm to the front, where the cook stands;
• up to 30 cm behind, where a wall stopped them, and a further 30 cm up that wall.

In an ordinary kitchen that radius takes in the drying rack, the cutting board, the dish towel and often the salad bowl.

In 2022 researchers at Montana State University repeated the idea with live bacteria and published the results in Physics of Fluids. They washed chicken with sterile water and caught the droplets on large trays of growth medium. Bacteria from the chicken grew on the trays. No foodborne pathogens were identified, but some of the bacteria belonged to the same genera as known pathogens, including Aeromonas and Staphylococcus.

Faucet height made the biggest difference. With the water falling from 40 cm, growth covered noticeably more of the tray than with a 15 cm drop. Whether the faucet had an aerator, and whether the chicken had skin, made no significant difference. The softness of the meat did matter: it dents under the stream, and the water shoots out of the dent the way it does off a spoon held under a faucet. And a lot of droplets fly off the moment the stream hits the chicken.

Does water wash bacteria off?

In the same 2003 report, chickens were washed in cold (64°F / 18°C) and hot (113°F / 45°C) water, for 10 and for 30 seconds. Bacterial counts on the meat were often lower afterward, but not consistently, and the method made no noticeable difference. The authors concluded that neither washing nor soaking should be recommended at home as a way to reduce bacteria.

Some evidence points the other way. In 2005 New Mexico State University rinsed chicken breasts for one minute in 15 different liquids, including juices, wines, vinegar, and salt and bicarbonate solutions. Counts fell after every one of them, most of all after distilled white vinegar. But the study counted total and indicator bacteria, not Salmonella or Campylobacter. Even after vinegar, total counts stayed above a thousand cells per square centimeter. And nobody measured where the rinsed-off bacteria ended up.

Some bacteria sit where water can’t reach. Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment tested fresh chicken breast fillets from stores. Campylobacter was on the surface of 87% of 100 fillets and inside the meat in 20% of 55, though at less than one cell per gram. In the researchers’ view, cross-contamination while preparing chicken matters more for consumers than eating undercooked meat.

The USDA puts it plainly: cooking to the right temperature kills germs on meat and poultry, whether you fry, bake, boil or grill, so washing them is risky and not necessary for safety.

Vinegar, lemon, salt and hot water

People wash chicken in many ways. The USDA lists these: under running water, in a colander, soaked in a bowl of water, in salt water, with vinegar or lemon juice. In focus groups in Philadelphia, published in 2012, participants also mentioned hot water and acidic solutions.

The USDA’s position since 2019 is that washing, rinsing or brining meat and poultry in salt water, vinegar or lemon juice does not destroy bacteria. Soaking in brine serves no food safety purpose and is a matter of taste. In the Campden BRI report, one of two test methods did show fewer bacteria after soaking in vinegar or salt water. The authors suspected that vinegar and salt had simply been carried onto the test plates and slowed bacterial growth during the test itself.

Hot water doesn’t help either: in the same report, water at 113°F (45°C) did no better than cold. The USDA says never to use soap or detergent on meat or poultry, because the chemicals end up in your food.

Why chicken in particular

The main concern with chicken is Campylobacter. The FSA calls it the main cause of bacterial food poisoning in the UK. Its 2014 campaign put the figure at 280,000 cases a year, around four in five of them from contaminated poultry. It takes only a small number of cells to make someone ill, which our article on infectious dose explains in more detail.

How often chicken carries Campylobacter depends on the country. In the European SafeConsume project, researchers watched people cook chicken in 87 households across six countries and tested the meat they had bought. Campylobacter turned up on 8.3% of samples in Norway and on 80% in France and Portugal, 57% on average. Salmonella was found on 8.6% of samples, all of them from Hungary.

How long the bacteria last on surfaces:

• Campylobacter up to 4 hours in the kitchen, Salmonella up to 32 hours (USDA);
• Campylobacter 4.5 hours on plastic at 59°F (15°C) and 3.5 hours at 77°F (25°C), about 3 hours on steel and wood (lab tests at Yangzhou University in China, 2023).

The illness hits hardest in young children, pregnant women, older people and those with an underlying condition such as cancer, diabetes, or liver or kidney disease.

Splashes are only part of it

In studies that watch real home cooks, washing chicken isn’t always the main problem. In SafeConsume, the only practice linked to pathogens spreading onto kitchen surfaces was how cutting boards were used for chicken and vegetables. In Portugal, Hungary and Romania people often rinsed chicken in the sink and then washed vegetables in the same sink. The authors add that cross-contamination with enough bacteria to cause illness seems to be rare, probably because pathogen levels in food are usually low.

An American study that filmed 300 people in a test kitchen found something similar. Bacteria from the chicken reached the salad even for people who never washed it, and the main routes were the sink and people’s hands. The details are in our article on kitchen cross-contamination.

In 2025 Dutch researchers worked out what protects you most. Their risk model put thorough cooking first, followed by washing your hands after handling raw chicken and switching to a clean cutting board. In a separate experiment, Campylobacter was transferred from raw fillet to cucumber. Cutting the cucumber on a different board reduced the transfer rate by 75%, and a different knife reduced it by 57%, compared with changing neither.

Not washing chicken is the right call. Clean hands, a separate board and a thermometer do more.

Who washes chicken, and why

The surveys asked different questions, so the numbers can’t be compared directly.

The reasons are much the same everywhere. In the Portuguese study, people said they washed chicken because that’s what they had learned at home. In the Canadian survey, habit had the strongest influence of any factor on both washing poultry and using a thermometer. In a 2022 US survey, 68.1% of people who washed poultry didn’t know it was the wrong thing to do. After reading the USDA advice, 81.9% of them said they were at least somewhat confident they could stop. Among those who knew and washed anyway, 58.4% said they cleaned up well afterward and didn’t see a risk.

If you do wash it

Sometimes you want to get rid of something, blood clots for example. If so, keep the damage down.

• Try it without the faucet first. The USDA suggests patting the spot with a damp paper towel and washing your hands straight away.
• Soak rather than rinse under a running faucet. If blood has to go, the Campden BRI authors say soaking and draining is better than washing, because it splashes less. The USDA adds that the chicken should stay in the fridge while it soaks. Pour the water away carefully, never reuse it, and clean the bowl and sink afterward.
• Keep the faucet close to the chicken. In the Montana study, faucet height mattered most. Turn the water on gently, because the first impact of the stream throws off a lot of droplets.
• Clear everything within 70 cm of the sink. The drying rack, the board with vegetables, the dish towel.
• Clean the sink and the area around it afterward. The USDA says to use hot, soapy water first and then a disinfectant approved for those surfaces.

Step by step

1. Make the salad and anything else that won’t be cooked before you open the chicken.
2. Put the chicken on the board and throw the tray and film away at once. Don’t reuse them.
3. If something needs removing, pat it with a damp paper towel and wash your hands straight away.
4. Use a separate board and knife for raw chicken. Whether wood or plastic is the better choice is covered separately.
5. After handling chicken, wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds. In a US study that observed 101 people, only 40% washed their hands properly after handling raw chicken breast.
6. Cook until the inside reaches 165°F (74°C), and check with a thermometer. In the same study, 37% used a thermometer on the chicken breast, and only 77% of the breasts reached a safe temperature. The FSA also advises cutting into the thickest part: the meat should be steaming hot all the way through, with no pink, and the juices should run clear.
7. Wash the board, knife, sink and countertop with hot, soapy water, then disinfect them.
8. Keep raw chicken in the fridge below 41°F (5°C), in a sealed container on the bottom shelf.

If your chicken has been thawed and you’re wondering whether you can freeze it again, see our article on refreezing.

Summary

Don’t wash raw chicken. In the experiments, water didn’t reliably reduce bacteria, and droplets traveled up to 70 cm from the sink. What makes chicken safe is 165°F (74°C) inside. The biggest protection comes from thorough cooking, washing your hands after handling raw meat and using a separate board. If something needs removing, use a damp paper towel. For foods you should wash before cutting, see our article on bananas, avocados and melons.

The wider picture of kitchen food safety is in our food safety hub.