Trish Twohig, Director of Food Safety with Safefood, shares five important BBQ safety tips.
Whether you're a seasoned host or just someone who loves to fire up the barbecue, there are some essential rules you should never ignore when handling food safely in summer.
As someone who works year-round to promote safe food practices, I'm proud that we at Safefood are supporting Safe2Eat — a major EU-wide campaign led by the European Food Safety Authority that empowers consumers with science-backed food safety information.
Through this and beyond, we’re here to help ensure your guests are in safe hands every time you serve. These are the most common mistakes I see every year at summer BBQs, and what you can do to avoid them.
1. Clean equipment
If you're digging out the barbecue for the first time in a long time, be sure to give it a clean. Grease and old food residue can linger on your grill from last summer. Give the metal rack a good scrub with oven cleaner or a damp brush dipped in baking soda. Rinse it thoroughly with hot, soapy water.
A clean grill helps reduce contamination risks and ensures your food tastes great and cooks evenly. And give it a clean before you tidy it away. It's easier to clean when it's warm or cooling down than when the residue is baked onto it!
2. Timings and leftovers
One of the many food safety challenges in summer is keeping perishable food at safe temperatures. When entertaining guests, we might want to serve little bites or snacks while they wait for the burger or hot dog to be served. But when showing up to a barbecue, I never want to see salads or dips sitting in the sun.
When food is sitting outside in the sun, the direct sunlight and warmer temperatures are ideal for harmful germs to grow quickly.
My tips would be to:
- Keep perishable foods like salads, coleslaw and dips in the fridge until just before serving.
- Use cool boxes with ice packs to transport and store chilled foods if you're not serving them immediately.
- Keep raw meat chilled until you are ready to grill. Don’t leave it sitting out while you are lighting your barbecue.
And who doesn’t love leftovers? Once everyone’s had their fill, pack up any leftovers quickly. Leaving them on the garden table isn’t just an invitation for bacteria to multiply, but insects, too.
Cover any leftovers and let them cool in the kitchen. Do this within two hours of cooking. Eat them within three days then it's time to throw them out. If you want to reheat them, do so until it is piping hot and only reheat them once.
If I have any doubts about a leftover and its safety, I play it safe and throw it out! No leftover is worth the risk of food poisoning.
3. Prep your food
When planning a BBQ, I always prep the food I am cooking beforehand. That includes any frozen food. Cooking frozen meat straight from the freezer is a guaranteed way to end up with a raw centre and burned edges.
Always fully defrost meat before grilling. It should be done on a plate covered overnight, on the bottom shelf of the fridge. This helps prevent any drips that could contaminate other foods.
And when you are cooking meat on the barbecue, make sure the grill is ready. When using a charcoal BBQ, light it well in advance. You may want to throw on your burgers or sausages as soon as you see the flames, but don’t. Wait until the flames have died down before you start grilling. It allows for even and safer cooking.
4. Avoid cross-contamination
Cross-contamination is one of the most common causes of food poisoning at BBQs. Raw meat juices contain harmful bacteria that can easily spread if you’re not careful. There are simple but effective ways to stop the spread of bacteria.
When having a barbecue, make sure to always:
- Use separate utensils, plates, and cutting boards for raw and cooked meat.
- Wash your hands thoroughly before and after handling food.
- Never place cooked meat back on a plate that holds raw meat.
- Keep ready-to-eat items like salads, dips, and sauces well away from raw meat.
I would recommend doing a check of your fridge before you do your shop for your barbecue. When storing food in the fridge for a barbecue, it can be difficult to organise foods separately and safely. So, check your fridge and make some space!
5. Finding the right temperature
I can’t emphasise this enough: just because it looks cooked doesn’t mean it is.
This is important especially with poultry, pork, minced and skewered meat, such as burgers, sausages and kebabs. While the outside may look cooked (and in some cases burnt), the inside can still be raw.
The best tool I can ask you to use is a meat thermometer. Insert it into the thickest part of the meat and check that it reaches 75°C.
No meat thermometer? No problem. You can check to see if the meat is cooked by cutting into it and seeing that:
- They are piping hot all the way through
- There is no pink meat left
- The juices run clear
On the day of the barbecue, I will most likely be busy running around. That’s why I like to pre-cook the meat in the oven, then I can pop it on the grill for that classic BBQ flavour. It’s a time saver and gives me confidence in knowing the meat is fully cooked.
Hosting a BBQ should be enjoyable, not stressful. A little planning and common sense go a long way when it comes to food safety. By taking the time to prep to avoid these common mistakes, you will be a grill master in no time.
Most importantly, you'll be protecting your guests from any unwanted surprises, and they will remember your BBQ for all the right reasons.
