Can I eat chicken that was cooked, frozen, and thawed in the microwave yesterday? [duplicate]

Can I eat chicken that was cooked, frozen, and thawed in the microwave yesterday? [duplicate] - Appetizing healthy salad with fresh vegetables and fried chicken decorated with black olives and served in white plate

I roasted a chicken then took the meat off the bone and froze it in little freezer bags. Yesterday evening I thawed some of the chicken in the microwave, expecting to eat it straight away, but didn't eat all of it. I put the leftover chicken in the fridge yesterday evening, after it cooled. Do you think it is ok to eat today? And if so, would I need to heat it up before eating it, or could I eat it straight from the fridge? Thank you!



Best Answer

I certainly wouldn't risk it. The conventional wisdom with things like frozen cooked foods is to eat them within 24 hours of defrosting. If you defrosted it in the fridge you might have a little leeway (but it would still be a risk) but as you defrosted and reheated it in the microwave the likelihood is that eating will make you ill.

Definitely don't reheat it again, you should only ever reheat things once (though I'm less certain of this as many recipes call for cooking and reheating things a number I'd times) as the various heating and coolings increases the risk of dangerous bacteria growth.




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Can you eat chicken that has been frozen twice?

The myth that it is not safe to re-freeze chicken meat that has been defrosted is a mix between two issues: quality and safety. While it is safe to put chicken that has been defrosted below 5 degrees, back into the freezer, freezing and re-freezing chicken may deteriorate the quality of the meat.

Can you defrost cooked chicken twice?

When handled properly, raw chicken can be refrozen within 2 days after thawing, while cooked chicken can be refrozen within 4 days. For quality purposes, the sooner you refreeze chicken, the better. Only refreeze raw chicken that has been thawed in the refrigerator.

Can you eat cooked chicken that has been defrosted?

You can eat it without any food safety concern with proper defrosting/thawing of course.

Is it safe to eat chicken defrosted in microwave?

The USDA says that thawing in the microwave is safe, but because it can quickly bring meat into the \u201cdanger zone\u201d where bacteria multiply most rapidly, meat defrosted that way should be cooked immediately as soon as it's thawed.



How to Thaw Chicken Safely | 3 Easy Methods




More answers regarding can I eat chicken that was cooked, frozen, and thawed in the microwave yesterday? [duplicate]

Answer 2

Something that many people aren't aware of is it's not the bacteria or fungi (mold) themselves that cause food poisoning but the toxins made by the microorganisms. Of course, if you eat something that's contaminated with bacteria or fungi that can multiply and grow inside our bodies, it will make us sick. But the real danger is the by-products made by these microorganisms - endo and exotoxins from bacteria and mycotoxins from fungi.

Some (many?) of these toxins will be destroyed by heat; still how many of us want to reheat our food to the high temperatures needed for that long? It might now be safe to eat but how good would it taste? An example is the 10 minutes of boiling temperatures for foods such as home canned beans to sufficiently break down the toxin made by Clostridium botulinum.

Not all toxins are destroyed this way either. Reheating might kill the pathogens but you could still be affected by their toxins. So even after killing all possible harmful microorganisms, a person can still get ill. You might be fine eating it but why take a chance?

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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