What Setting Should You Use To Clean Kitchen Towels?

Kitchen towels may seem like low-maintenance linens, but they're some of the hardest-working, germiest items in your home. From drying hands to wiping up spills to handling raw meat messes, these towels can help you to best clean your kitchen — but only if they are being properly cleaned themselves. That's why it's important to wash them using your machine's hottest water setting, which will ensure deep cleaning, break down stubborn oils, and sanitize more effectively than cooler washes or delicate cycles.

While the hot cycle on your washer works best for most, not all kitchen towels are created equal. Some lightweight towels may fare better on a warm or cool wash with a gentle cycle to prevent fraying or fading. As a rule, you should always check care labels to know how best to wash the towels you own. In general, kitchen towels are one of the types of laundry you shouldn't wash in cold water. So if you have kitchen towels you must launder gently, don't use them to clean up your worst messes — specifically when it comes to raw meat. 

Best practices outlined by the 2022 FDA Food Code even suggest that reusable cloths used to wipe surfaces that have come into contact with raw meat should be kept and laundered separately from those used on other surfaces. So following this rule of thumb, use sensitive linens for lighter messes or drying hands, and leave the heavy lifting to kitchen towels that can stand up to the heat to be properly sanitized. You don't want to risk food safety because you're worried about ruining your delicate towels. 

Many experts agree that at least 140 degrees Farenheit is an adequate temperature for disinfecting kitchen towels from harmful bacteria in the average household. So if your washing machine's temperature goes that high, go ahead and wash your towels on that setting with regular detergent. You can also give it a boost with heavy-duty detergent if the towels are intensely soiled.

If you don't know exactly how hot your hottest wash cycle goes, there are other ways you can pump up the cleaning power in your kitchen towel load. Some experts recommend the addition of oxygen bleach to your wash cycle to help with the removal of organic stains like food and wine, which are often found on kitchen cloths. Others recommend the process of laundry stripping your towels to ensure the deepest clean. The simplest method for stripping your towels is to use a combination of washing soda, Borax, and laundry detergent you already have. But either method will ensure that your hottest cycle is effectively disinfecting your hard-working dish rags.  

Once your towels are clean, the drying process matters, too. For cotton towels, use a high heat setting in the dryer to eliminate lingering bacteria, especially after handling raw food or wiping down kitchen counters. But for those more delicate fabrics that call for it, stick to low or medium heat, or even better, air dry them to prolong their life.