How to Wash Kitchen Towels So They’re Germ-Free

Let’s say you’ve just sliced some raw meat while cooking dinner. Maybe you wiped your hand quickly on a kitchen towel, or mopped up a small spill of soy sauce with it. Clearly, you’ll need to toss this towel in the wash after tonight, but should you do anything special to disinfect it? Or is it fine to put it in your hamper with your clothes?

We talked to laundry experts to figure out how to wash your kitchen towels to eliminate bacteria. Here’s what they had to say.

You Don’t Always Need to Use Hot Water

When it comes to the water temperature for washing soiled towels, hot or warm is best, though you should always check the care label on the towel itself.

Hot water can kill microbes and increase the activity of detergents, explains Jill Roberts, PhD, an associate professor of public health at the University of South Florida. “We often call this ‘decontamination,’ which refers to reducing microbes to levels unlikely to cause disease,” she says. Play it safe and choose hot or the sanitize cycle if your towels wiped up surfaces with raw meat or eggs.

If your towel has only been used for things like drying clean hands, then warm water will do the trick.

Patric Richardson, author of House Love and Laundry Love, says he never uses hot water while doing laundry. “I find with modern fabrics, detergents, and machines that it really isn’t necessary. I always use warm—and the express cycle,” he says. “I also happen to go through a lot of kitchen towels since I am not really a fan of paper towels.”

Use Bleach Properly So It’s Effective

If you want an extra measure of security, you can use bleach to kill germs. According to Dr. Roberts, bleach can be used to sterilize items and remove almost all microbes, but the thickness of the towels you’re washing and the type of contamination can impact how well the bleach works.

“Follow the instructions on the bleach bottle for proper dilution,” she says. “Many people add too much bleach and not enough water—both are needed for the bleach to work properly.”

If you find traditional chlorine bleach a little too harsh, you can opt for oxygen bleach, which is typically gentler on fabrics. “Chlorine bleach in my house is a never,” Richardson says. “I use oxygen bleach all the time for things like kitchen towels. It gets them clean and keeps that icky smell out while being safer for the fabrics and the color.”

Wash Towels Separately From Clothes

If everything’s getting clean, it can’t hurt to toss it all into one load, right? Experts recommend against it. 

“Ironically, your clothes may be dirtier than your kitchen towels, microbially speaking. I wouldn’t recommend washing them together—the stains are a bigger threat than the microbes,” Dr. Roberts says. “But you could wash them with bathroom towels as both are typically contaminated with microbes.”

Wash Frequency Should Vary for Towels

The frequency of washing kitchen towels can depend on what the towels have been used for.  “The one by the sink that I dry my hands on? Every few days,” Richardson notes. “The stack of them I use when I am cooking, wiping up stains, and cleaning the counter? Right after using them.”

Towels that are frequently wet or have stains should also be tossed in the wash as soon as possible.

One of the best ways to keep your kitchen towels germ-free, according to Dr. Roberts? “Use disinfectant or bleach wipes to clean up spills of high-risk food items like raw meat and juice from poultry,” she says. “This can protect your towels and decontaminate your kitchen surfaces.”