How to Wash Chicken| Clean Chicken Before Cooking

Today I share with you chicken preparation recipe on how to clean chicken legs properly for cooking. In this recipe, you’ll learn kitchen tips on how to perfectly wash chicken at home with the major focus being on how to clean chicken legs.

Dear foodies before I proceed with the recipe, I would like to welcome you to my blog. If you are a new reader looking for easy to cook recipes as a beginner or an experienced home cook, You are in the right place.

This recipe is much needed because I would show you step by step photo guides on how to wash chicken in your kitchen before cooking.

When considering chicken hygiene, many people believe that chicken should not be washed again at home because they have already been cleaned from the farms or processing locations.

While there may be some truths in this, in Nigeria, cleaning chicken at home before cooking is a precautionary step to clean all the areas missed while the chicken was cleaned in the farm.

You’ll need these:

2 kg chicken legs
Lemons or limes
Water
Big bowls
Small kitchen knife

How to clean raw chicken before cooking.

Step 1 : Prepare the cleaning area

Remove plates, cups and other food utensils or food items from the cleaning area to avoid cross contamination.
Clean the food preparation area with dishwashing soap and sponge.
Thoroughly rinse the prep area with water to ensure that there is no soap residue any where

Step 2: Defrost the chicken

For food safety, it is advised to keep raw chicken frozen until you need to cook it.

In view of this, the frozen chicken needs to be defrosted right before cleaning. So do this;

Bring out the frozen chicken from your freezer
Remove the packaging and transfer into a big bowl
Fill the bowl with room temperature water and allow it defrost naturally in the water

Step 3 : Cleaning the Chicken

Transfer the soft, defrosted chicken to your kitchen sink – this will provide more space for cleaning and also make the after cleaning process easy.
Fill the sink with more water if needed
Place another big bowl by the side, this bowl is for the cleaned chicken

Check towards the end of the chicken leg
Pull out all the feathers with a small kitchen knife

Gently scrape off the dead skin in the bony area of the chicken leg as can be seen in the image above
Do this for all the chicken you are cleaning

Cut off the area shown in the picture above with a small knife or kitchen scissors
Use the kitchen knife to scrape the chicken skin to remove the gunk stuck on it.

While scrapping, you would notice your knife looks like the photo below.

After all the chicken have been cleaned using the steps listed above.

Drain the water in the sink
Scoop out the dirt removed from the chicken and put them in the bin

Step 4 : Second cleaning

Fill the sink with water again
Transfer the cleaned chicken from the second bowl back into the sink
Cut lemons or lime in halves
Gently rub the lime slices on the chicken while squeezing it gently to release the lemon juice
After thoroughly rubbing each chicken leg with lemon or lime, put it in another bowl
Do this for all the chicken.

Step 5 : Clean up time

This is the final step in cleaning chicken especially chicken legs before cooking.

Drain the water used for cleaning the chicken in the sink
Pour dishwashing liquid on the food prep area and the sink
Get a sponge and wash the sink and the nearby area the thoroughly
Remember to thoroughly wash the bowls, knife and kitchen scissor used for cleaning the chicken
First rinse the prep area well with warm water ensuring that the soap residue is rinsed off thoroughly
Then rinse the bowls, knife and scissors
Place the clean bowls upside down to drain out the water
Allow everything to air-dry.

These are the simple steps for washing chicken to get it ready for cooking.

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Here is a free video tutorial on how to clean raw chicken before cooking.