When & how to clean a cutting board.

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When & How to Clean a Cutting Board.

The quick answer about cleanliness.

In short, you should be using 2 separate cutting boards: 1 for bread & vegetables, 1 for meat & seafood. And you should clean all of your cutting boards after every use by scrubbing, rinsing, and sanitizing them. In competition you will be cooking and serving meats and sides to judges and guests. It’s your responsibility to maintain the cleanest cook site you can.

Use 2 separate cutting boards: 1 for meat, 1 for non-meat. Clean all cutting boards after every use.

Why should you care?

Well, when you’re grilling for yourself and others it’s your responsibility to maintain a safe kitchen. Basically it’s your duty to prevent the spread of food born illness. If you mess up at a competition and give someone an accidental case of salmonella, or worse a bunch of people, you’re probably not going to feel great about it. Nor will your peers if they ever link it back to your unclean habits.

Use 2 separate cutting boards!

The Meat Board:

The meat board is for cutting meat, poultry, seafood, etc. More specifically it is for cutting anything that can contain or spread pathogens and will be further cooked. Think of it as your ‘dirty’ board and clean it often. Wash your hands every time you leave this board, you know it’s touched raw meat.

The Non-Meat Board:

The non-meat board is primarily for cutting vegetables or bread. But again, it’s not quite as it seems. The non-meat board is more specifically for cleaned or packaged foods that do not or spread pathogens. Think of this board as the ‘clean’ board, nothing you couldn’t put in your mouth touches it. Wash your hands every time before using this board, you have to keep it clean for it to be clean.

When to clean a cutting board?

After each use!

Clean both of your cutting boards after every meal prep session. This will help maintain a clean surface over longer periods of time as your cutting board wears. Deep grooves and scratches can form on your cutting board from normal use. These deep grooves can then fill with food and bacteria and cause illness. Cleaning regularly helps prevent any build up.

If you need to switch from ‘dirty’ to ‘clean’.

If you’ve got limited cutting boards using separate boards for each meal prep might not be possible. And if you’re switching from say trimming chicken thighs to de-ribbing kale, you’re going to have to turn your ‘dirty’ board into a ‘clean’ one. Just clean and sanitize before switching and you should be fine.

How to clean a cutting board?

Cleaning a cutting board is an easy 3 step process: scrub, rinse, sanitize. Follow those steps in that order and you will be well on your way to reputable food safety. It sounds simple because it is, but there is still more to it…

dish cleaning station set up
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I. Scrub with soap and warm water

Find either a sink or your wash tub at competition and begin by wetting the cutting board. Next, scrub all surfaces of the cutting board thoroughly with a rough sponge and warm soapy water. Make sure to scrub into scratches and grooves when you can.

II. Rinse with clean water

Rinsing very thoroughly is actually a really important step. A lot of food illness cases are actually caused by people ingesting larger than usual amounts of soap and reacting poorly. Rinsing is also an important step for carrying away dirt and oils trapped in the soap. For these reasons, make sure that you rinse all of the soap away. In competition this will require changing your rinse tub regularly.

III. Sanitize the surface

Last but not least is sanitization. Since cutting boards get cuts in them over time and those cuts can carry bacteria along, it’s important that we sanitize our cutting boards. In competition we use bleach. I mean, you have to have a bleach bucket and a bleach tub anyways. So mix a bleach sanitizer using one cap of bleach per gallon of water (more specific recipe). Completely coat your cutting board in sanitizer then let it air dry at least 2 minutes.

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