I am confused about de-frosting frozen chicken. I am now hearing that putting it under a running cold tap is not safe. Is this true?

In order to defrost your frozen chicken safely there are three different methods you can choose depending on the time you have available: in the fridge, in water or in your microwave.

Using your fridge to defrost your frozen chicken is the method we recommend. This is the slowest method but this is also the safest method. You should plan your defrosting time for roughly five hours per pound of meat. So, overnight will be long enough to defrost any sized frozen chicken.

Defrosting your frozen chicken in cold water is faster than defrosting it in the fridge. Because this method involves immersing the frozen chicken in water the chicken must be wrapped in a sealed plastic bag so that the water does not leak onto the meat. This is also so that the flavour does not get washed away.

The frozen chicken must be completely covered by cold water throughout the defrosting period. To ensure that the water remains cold you should change it every half hour. You should never use warm water to quicken the process, as this may encourage the growth of bacteria to harmful levels.

If you are pressed for time, using a microwave to defrost your frozen chicken can be useful. Refer to the microwave manual as many microwaves are different and require different times to defrost a whole bird. Care needs to be taken to ensure that you do not dry out the meat when you defrost.

For chicken breasts or small pieces of chicken, ensure that the wrapping is removed before putting the meat in the microwave. Put the pieces in a microwave dish so as to catch dripping juices and, using the defrost setting, defrost two minutes at a time checking progress between each go. Once the chicken pieces have been defrosted, they should be cooked straight away If you need any more information, you can visit our Defrosting Frozen Chicken

Or, click here to find out where your frozen food comes from.

The New Ice Age Team