Kitchen hygiene is 1 of the essential skills every home cook should acquire. Knowing how to keep your cookware, cutware, and eatware clean is necessary to keep your family unit and occasional guests at home safe from foodborne illness.

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When it comes to poultry, kitchen hygiene becomes fifty-fifty more than critical. Raw poultry is often contaminated with Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Clostridium perfringens leaner. Each of these leaner tin infect humans and crusade a variety of wellness problems.

Kitchen Hygiene Basics for Cutting Raw Chicken

If you're cooking chicken, hither are two essential kitchen hygiene rules to follow:

  1. Don't cutting raw chicken on the same cut lath every bit other ingredients without cleaning it thoroughly between uses;
  2. Don't use the same knife yous used to cut the raw chicken for anything else before cleaning it.

One question that home cooks oft enquire is, "What's the best mode to make clean my knife after cutting raw chicken?" I spent this morn doing diligent research on the topic. Here's what you need to know.

The all-time fashion to clean a knife after cut raw craven is to launder it past hand in soapy water and, afterwards, soak it in a solution of 1 quart h2o and 1 tablespoon household bleach. Cleaning the knife by mitt will wash abroad any leftover pieces, and the bleach will impale whatsoever bacteria. Later on soaking the knife, rinse information technology under articulate water and wipe it dry out.

Contrary to pop conventionalities and despite what most marketers write on the label, dish lather isn't a sanitizer. "It's not intended to impale microorganisms," says food safety specialist Claudia Narvaez in an interview for CTVNews. "It volition kill some bacteria, but non the ones that are more resistant to ecology conditions, like salmonella or E. coli."

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You're non using dish lather to kill bacteria but to remove the microscopic bits and pieces of chicken and fatty stuck to the knife's surface. Dish soap acts as a degreaser that helps you clean these nutrient particles off the bract'southward cutting surface. If you don't remove them, the knife volition turn into a breeding ground for leaner.

Sanitize Your Knife With Diluted Bleach

On the other hand, bleach kills off 99% of bacteria, which is why using a diluted bleach solution to clean your cookware and cutware at dwelling is so useful for sanitization. Sodium hypochlorite, the active ingredient in bleach, kills Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Clostridium perfringens bacteria, all of which are what makes raw poultry potentially harmful for humans.

So the next time you cut raw craven, practice this: clean your knife in soapy h2o to launder away the raw meat particles, then disinfect information technology by briefly soaking it in or swiping the blade with diluted bleach (one quart water, 1 teaspoon bleach). This cleaning technique guarantees that your knife is clean and safe to employ immediately after.

How much time does "briefly" mean, exactly? Most people recommend 1 minute, which seems like sound communication to me.

Whether you're soaking the knife or swiping the blade with a diluted bleach solution, let it soak or let the solution balance for 60 seconds before rinsing. This should give the active ingredient in bleach sufficient time to kill off any bacteria.

Will Bleach Damage My Knife?

Some die-hard knife users suggest against using bleach to disinfect your pocketknife. I've used bleach solutions for cleaning my blades for years — and I haven't seen any noticeable deterioration on them. Nevertheless, at that place seems to be sound science behind non using diluted bleach on stainless steel cutware.

According to a study cited by R&D Earth, bleach diluted to one:10 and ane:fifty tin can cause corrosion on stainless steel. This is why some metallurgists recommend sanitizing stainless steel cutware with alternatives to diluted bleach, such every bit sodium dichloroisocyanurate or quaternary ammonium.

The magazine recommends using Sodium dichloroisocyanurate (NaDCC) instead. If yous are worried well-nigh your knives and are looking for an culling to bleach, the problem is that NaDCC cleaners are surprisingly hard to discover for domestic utilize.

Instead, you can apply quaternary ammonium cleaners. Quaternary ammonium kills 99% of germs and eliminates odors, just like bleach (and this is scientifically proven). The difference is that information technology's less harmful to stainless steel surfaces and will, in theory, exist gentler to your knife.

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Many restaurants have gone to using quaternary ammonium cleaners instead of bleach solutions for disinfecting their cookware and cutware in recent years.

Possibly the about significant advantage I come across for quaternary ammonium cleaners is that yous tin purchase ane in the course of a spray — and forget about diluting it all together.

Can't I Just Use Soapy H2o?

Information technology depends on what you achieve.

If you simply want to clean a knife only not sanitize information technology, soapy water volition practice just fine. If your goal is to kill any leftover leaner on the bract, warm water won't assistance.

Co-ordinate to the U.Southward. National Sanitation Foundation, to sanitize a surface, you lot should launder information technology with water at a temperature of no less than 190°F (88°C).

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Almost dwelling water heaters produce h2o at a temperature of 104°F (~twoscore°C) to 120°F (~49°C), which ways that running water is generally non hot enough to sanitize a pocketknife.

Suppose y'all only have dish soap and running water at your disposal. In that example, the best manner to disinfect your knife is to rut water in your electric kettle (or bring information technology to a boil in a pot on the stovetop), pour information technology into a bowl or container big enough to permit the pocketknife rest, and submerge it in the h2o for two-3 minutes.

This technique is not as effective as running the bract with a bleach solution or quaternary ammonium sanitizer. Information technology will still provide an extra layer of sanitization compared to cleaning the knife in soapy h2o alone.

The Bottom Line

There's more than one fashion to clean a pocketknife later on cutting raw chicken. At a minimum, wash information technology by hand with soapy water and warm h2o in the sink.

The best way to sanitize a knife subsequently cleaning is by using diluted bleach or fourth ammonium. Make homemade sanitizer by mixing 1 quart water with ane tablespoon bleach, or buy some quaternary ammonium sanitizer for your home.

No thing which of the two y'all prefer, remember to clean and sanitize your knife every time you cut raw craven. Poultry carries many harmful bacteria that tin can crusade foodborne illness — and, if you're non careful, you can hands crusade cantankerous-contamination at home.

Which option did you use, and how did it piece of work out for you lot? Exercise you accept any tips of your own that you lot'd like to share with other readers?

Let me know in the comments below 😉 .

Founding Editor

When Jim isn't in the kitchen, he is usually spending time with family and friends, and working with the HCW editorial team to answer the questions he used to ask himself back when he was learning the ropes of cooking.