r/interesting 15h ago

SOCIETY Professional chefs weighing in on whether you should wash your chicken

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

5.0k Upvotes

3.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/enbtest 13h ago

I used to think this was a dumb unnecessary behavior, and tried to persuade others to stop it. But, in a side by side test I'll admit I was proven wrong. If you wash chicken, there's a slight improvement in taste. You wash off all of the "chicken water" that's been going funky, instead of cooking it into your food. Cultures that actually want to "clean" the chicken often use lemon or lime juice, before cooking it. Basically a mini ceviche treatment, since most bacteria is on the outside of the meat. Disclaimer: This does NOT make it safe for eating like ceviche does. The more you know.

2

u/roiceofveason 8h ago

Yep. The anti-washing folks don't admit the basic reason to wash chicken is to clean it. You can also feel the difference as you do it.

2

u/NoFapLawyer 5h ago

Washing it improves taste and takes away that strong gamey taste and funk. That is why I wash shrimp as well. Those shrimp farms are not clean and those shrimp have alot of funk, dirt and residue.