Thawed chicken. Any caveats?

Our freezer turned off and everything thawed out including a chicken breast. I moved it to the fridge. Any danger in refreezing it even if I cook it soon thereafter? How soon should I cook it? Thanks.

If it was kept at refrigerated temperatures, you can chance refreezing it, but do cook it as soon as it thaws the next time.

Chicken can be nasty stuff, and almost all of it is contaminated by salmonella, something that can cause a nasty case of food poisoning. The bacteria grow at room temperature and they'll grow like wildfire.

You can bake or microwave it. You didn't say how long ago it thawed, but you should probably cook it within 24 hours if it is still chilled. If it warmed to over 40 degrees for a couple of hours, you should throw it away. It's not worth getting sick!

chicken if it thawed cook it then refreeze it, something like 70% of chicken has some level of salmonella bacteria

In fact that holds for all meat that was previously frozen. Never, never refreeze meat.

and he gets this question every year when we have hurricanes. He also has owned a restaurant and worked in food preparation all of his working life.

If the chicken is still cold to the touch, then you can refreeze it. However, refreezing at this point may affect the texture of the meat.

You can cook it and then freeze it without affecting the texture.

A friend of mine's freezer got unplugged accidentally last summer. When my friend discovered it, the meats, etc. were still cold but thawed. My brother said she could refreeze everything but the quality when thawed again might not be as good. My friend simply refroze everything and used the vegetables in soups.

She and her family ate everything later and are all still alive and well.

We tend to over react to these things in this country.

it's probably safe and unless it's really spoiled, cooking kills the nasties. Just make sure it's fully cooked without pink meat by the bones.

Since freezing doesn't kill bacteria, just inhibits their growth, I might be inclined to cook everything and then toss it back in the freezer, but that depends on how long it was out and how lucky I feel.

I refreeze meat all the time. Well, a lot of times. And "fresh" chicken is usually lightly frozen anyway and just thawed at the store, so freezing it is actually refreezing it.

Rarely does refreezing cause major cellular damage to the meat, but if it does just grind it up or find some other way to cook it so it doesn't seem icky. Meatballs, meat ravioli, empanadas, Jamaican meat patties, burritos, meatloaf... All invented to cover some nasty, but edible, meat they were too cheap or poor to throw away.

young by time they reach the table that the bones aren't fully hardened, so you get leaching into the surrounding meat when cooking, making fully cooked chicken sometimes be pink/red near the bones. Cook to 160 in the breast and 180 in the thigh and you're golden.

I've been spooked by pink in properly cooked pork, too. I thought it had more to do with blood, though, because I tried boiling the pink stuff and the color came out. (Cookbooks and good cooks don't really address this)

Anyway, the point is to cook it well, and the difference between that kind of pink and "raw" pink is pretty apparent.

I've successfully side stepped any disasters. :thumbsup: :donut: :donut: :)