Cooking & Storing Chicken

aFlabbyPanda

hi all,

I want to take chicken breast to work with me each day but I have no idea whats the best way to cook and store it safely.

Ideally I'd like to cook enough meat once or twice a week to last the week (eating 2 breasts a day). I'd be reheating the meat in a microwave (if possible) and adding it to rice, etc before eating.

I've no cooking knowledge at all so any advice would be great thanks.

rubadub

I posted the following in another thread...

You can wrap them in tinfoil first, with spices if you want. When cooked take them out and cool them quickly without ever opening up the tinfoil. I leave them on a rack outside the back so the wind cools them. Then cool in the fridge quickly.

Since they are still in tinfoil they were cooked "in a controlled environment", just like commercial cooked meat products are. The SECOND you open the tinfoil they are contaminated again, and more liable to go bad. If kept in tinfoil they should last as long as commercially available packs of cooked chicken.

Pressure cookers can be used to sterilize foods, this is what tinned and jarred foods really are, and why they can last indefinitely on a shelf at room temperature, but the moment they are opened in open air they are contaminated, within seconds. If kept cool the contaminations growth is very slow.

I am not sure how long they need, probably 40mins in a preheated oven at 180C, somebody else might comment. I did my last ones unwrapped, I scored them with a knife on the thick bits so they would cook quicker, I put them in around 240C and they were done in just 15mins (cut the thickest bits and check for pink). I then wrapped them in tinfoil in pairs immediately when still piping hot and chilled.

If you wrapped in pairs in tinfoil first they would need a lot more time, the time depends on the size/thickness of the breast, time is needed to penetrate to the centre.

aFlabbyPanda

thats sound all good. so leave them in the foil after cooking. How long with they last in the fridge once cooked?

rubadub

I wouldn't keep them longer than a week myself, the immediate cooling is important too.

If you look at cooked chicken in supermarkets you can get an idea. It is a good way to extend shelf life. e.g. if you had fillets nearing their use by date you cook them and then you are back to square 1, i.e. when cooked it will last a certain time again, it doesn't matter if they were close to the use by when cooked.

I usually go to the butcher on saturday, get 10, cook a few over the next few days, and maybe cook the remainder on a tuesday which are then eaten by saturday.

You could always freeze them when cooked too, I often bring frozen stuff to work and leave it in the fridge to be semi defrosted come lunch time.

rocknchef

rubadub wrote: »

I wouldn't keep them longer than a week myself, the immediate cooling is important too.

If you look at cooked chicken in supermarkets you can get an idea. It is a good way to extend shelf life. e.g. if you had fillets nearing their use by date you cook them and then you are back to square 1, i.e. when cooked it will last a certain time again, it doesn't matter if they were close to the use by when cooked.

I usually go to the butcher on saturday, get 10, cook a few over the next few days, and maybe cook the remainder on a tuesday which are then eaten by saturday.

You could always freeze them when cooked too, I often bring frozen stuff to work and leave it in the fridge to be semi defrosted come lunch time.

i would be careful giving some of your advice to a complete novice

rubadub

rocknchef wrote: »

i would be careful giving some of your advice to a complete novice

And I thought I was being careful! eps. after the recent defrosting threads seems we have to treat everybody as complete idiots, only way I suppose...

Best tell them to cook for 2-3 hours at 180 and eat within 10mins of cooking, like my parents do, they destroy nearly everything they cook.

What in particular would you have an issue with?

rocknchef

i personaly wouldnt have an issue with any of it as i am cooking 15years professionally. but for beginners the whole reviving food from nearly use by date to half defrosting things. I wouldnt be giving advice out on any of those topics.

Mr Magnolia

I wouldn't refridgerate cooked chicken for longer than 3/4 days.

Eviledna

Jeepers, I understand that we must all be careful re: poisioning, but if we can't give advice to a beginner for fear of misinterpretation, how is anyone ever to learn anything?

We all start somewhere. So I'm gonna risk it...

Here's a few guidelines BrianjG.

Cooking a chicken breast: Preheat the oven to 200, pop in the breasts in an oven dish, wrap in tin foil or cover with a lid, and for 2-3 chicken breasts it should take 20-30mins. A nice touch is to slice some lemon and garlic and put over the breasts before they go in the oven. Flavours the meat nicely.

Note:

• If you are not sure if they are done after 20 mins, cut one with a knife to make sure there is no pink in the center. It should be white.
• Put them back in the oven if you see any pink! Leave for a further 10 mins and recheck.
• Also, anything over 30 mins in the oven will dry them right out.

Right, so now they are cooked, leave them to cool down in the oven dish on the counter if the kitchen is not too hot. 20mins should have them quite cold. Then you can pop them in the fridge. Since you are bringing them to work, why not place them in ziplock bags once cool and keep in the fridge?

Now here are the important two facts:

1. Chicken, to be safe, should only ever be reheated ONCE. That means once it has cooled down, it can be bought cold and reheated in oven/microwave ONLY ONCE. This applies to almost everything.
2. Chicken, again to be safe, should really only be kept cooked for 2 days IN A FRIDGE. So if it's been left out on a counter overnight, it's gone. If it's been sitting in a warm locker etc for even a little while, it's gone. The repercussions from ignoring this rule ARE DIRE and you will be very ill. Safe is always better than sorry.

So how are you meant to bring it to work and keep it cool you ask? You know those handy little lunch bags you can get with the keep-cool lining like this? Get one of those. They are cheap in tescos/dunnes/aldi sometimes and milletts. Also get one of these and keep it in the freezer.

• Take your precooked chicken breast from the fridge.
• Make sure it was cooked today or yesterday, if not throw it out.
• Place it in your new cooler-lunch bag and take your re-usable gel pack out of your freezer and place it right beside it to keep it chilly.
• When it's lunch time in work, take the nice cold chicken from your bag and slice it if you like, or heat it whole in the microwave until piping hot. DO NOT EAT LUKE WARM FOOD. Bacteria love tepid environments and grow rapidly in them. Stir fry it, make an omlette out of it, just enjoy it.:)
• When you get home, make sure to remember to put your gel pack back in the freezer for tomorrow.

So basically, working a typical 5 day week, you will need to cook the chicken on Sunday night for Monday and Tues, and then Tues Night for Wed and Thurs and then Thurs nite for friday, keeping everything in the fridge ALL THE TIME.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to freeze/defrost cooked chicken. It's hard to get right and dodgy, and really not worth the hassle.

Now forgive me if this is condescending and you know all the above, but hopefully there is someone out there that this explanation will come in handy for!!;)

rocknchef

nothing wrong with given them the right advice:)

corblimey

Eviledna wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to freeze/defrost cooked chicken. It's hard to get right and dodgy, and really not worth the hassle.

This is the first I've heard of this. I normally cook a full chicken on a sunday, cut off all the white meat and freeze it after it's cooled down. I then eat the brown meat there and then or the day after. I'll use the breast meat in a few meals later that week and the other bits of chicken I'll use over the next few weeks in curries and sandwiches and things. If I couldn't freeze and defrost cooked chicken meat, I'd be throwing out a lot of uneaten meat. Why 'dodgy', what 'hassle'?

Eviledna

I put the word "Personally" at the start of the sentence to denote a personal opinion.:)

IMO, Frozen cooked chicken (and I was speaking about chicken breasts as in the OP) gets lumpy and tough. Now it might be my personal crappy freezer, or my personal lack of prowess, but it never seems as nice as freshly cooked and cooled chicken reheated. It can be "dodgy", IMO, to be freezing cooked chicken, then attempting to reheated, though which it goes through various states of cold->luke warm->warm->hot if you are not really used to cooking and want it to turn out well. Defrosting in the microwave can be tricky, especially for the novice, and it varies from oven to oven. It can also seem like "hassle" deboning chicken, dealing with jellied chicken fat that has frozen, especially if like me when I started, jellied chicken fat made you wretch. It can also be hassle finding the correct container in which to freeze things without getting freezer burn, or being a feather head like me and forgetting to take things out of the freezer the night before. That is hassle to me. But I'm odd like that. But others are too sometimes.:)

Faith

rubadub wrote: »

And I thought I was being careful! eps. after the recent defrosting threads seems we have to treat everybody as complete idiots, only way I suppose...

Not idiots, but it's best to assume that the person asking the question knows absolutely nothing. Imagine if instruction manuals were written for someone with the same level of knowledge as the creator - it wouldn't work. If you explain something completely as if to a beginner, you can't go much wrong. But if you assume they have a moderate level of knowledge and they don't, it could have serious consequences.

aFlabbyPanda

thanks to all who replied!,

Eviledna, you are a legend!, excellent post with just the info I was looking for.

rubadub

rocknchef wrote: »

but for beginners the whole reviving food from nearly use by date to half defrosting things. I wouldnt be giving advice out on any of those topics.

I thought it was pretty basic stuff. I was trying to point out that "use by", really should be "cook by" on many items. I think ~30% of food in the UK is binned and I can understand why.

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

I wouldn't refridgerate cooked chicken for longer than 3/4 days.

If the chicken was exposed in the cooking style eviledna described I would be the same. The OP asked how long when cooked the way I had said, still in the foil, never exposed. I would keep them a week max in that case, just like you see in supermarkets and their fridges are a lot warmer than mine.