Food Safe Kitchen: Burger Best Practices

Check out these safe food handling tips for grilling burgers safely all summer long.

1. Use or freeze ground beef within a day of purchase unless it comes in a tube or sealed package that has a best before date on it.

2. Store ground beef in the fridge on a plate or in a sealed bag on the bottom shelf in the fridge to avoid raw meat juices dripping onto other foods.

3. Wash up. It’s an age-old message that still rings true – washing your hands is still a key way to ensure you are preparing food safely. Disposable gloves make the clean up from making ground beef patties a bit easier but not necessary as long as you wash your hands well with soapy water before and after handling raw ground beef.

4. Use separate bowls, knives, cutting boards and plates or platters when managing ground beef in the kitchen. Don’t let raw meat or raw meat juices come in contact with uncooked foods.

5. Cook ground beef well. Don’t serve ground beef rare or medium-rare. Cook to 160ºF or 71ºC and test each patty with a digital instant read thermometer inserted sideways into each patty to know the patties are done.

6. Cooked burger patties can be stored up to 3 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. Wrap them well and store in a sealed container.