Tap to Read ➤

Cooking Frozen Chicken

Aastha Dogra
Cooking frozen chicken is quite similar to cooking a chicken at normal temperature. It should ideally be brought to room temperature before it is cooked. This is because, there can be a possible infection from bacteria such as salmonella, that might be present in chicken, which is not heated or cooked. This story gives you a few tips to cook frozen chicken.
When cooking frozen chicken or for that matter any meat or fish, it is very essential to thaw it first. The whole procedure of cooking, including defrosting, takes a couple of hours so it is essential that you start early.
The first step would be to keep the chicken which is frozen in the refrigerator, for a couple of hours, until it thaws. If you are running short of time and can't allot a few hours to the thawing process, it is recommended that you keep the chicken in a Ziploc bag under running water. The meat will thaw in about an hour.
If you plan to adapt this method, then, fill a bowl with water and submerge the chicken in it. Change the water after half an hour. The only thing to remember though is that the chicken thawed using this process should be cooked before freezing again.
Another option to cook frozen chicken is to thaw it in a microwave first. This will defrost the chicken in even lesser time. For this, simply remove the packaging and place the chicken in a microwave safe container. After doing this, put the container in the microwave and select the defrost option. This procedure to thaw the chicken takes just a few minutes.
If the whole chicken is to be defrosted, it will take little longer time as the insides of the chicken may take longer to defrost. However, cooking chicken breasts or chicken thighs, will take just a couple of minutes as these pieces are smaller in size and hence, thaw rapidly.
In fact it is easier to cut semi-frozen chicken into strips before a stir fry rather than a completely frozen chicken breast, so a smaller chicken piece can be cooked in semi-frozen condition too.

Recipes
Once the defrosting has been done, there are a number of chicken recipes which you can use to cook frozen chicken. The chicken can be baked, or it can be grilled or it may even be cut into pieces and stir fry. Let's learn to cook chicken in a crockpot i.e., using slow pressure cooker procedure by following this recipe.
Ingredients Required: Black beans, salsa, whole kernel corn, boneless chicken breasts, and cheddar cheese
Procedure: Defrost the chicken using any of the procedures mentioned above. Once this is done assemble the ingredients such as black beans, salsa, whole kernel corn, boneless chicken breasts, and cheddar cheese to make the chicken. Start the cooking by putting the beans, salsa, and corn in a crockpot and mixing all of them.
After about five minutes of cooking, add chicken breasts to them. Now cover the crockpot with a lid and cook until the chicken becomes tender. It will take approximately two and a half hours to three hours to make the chicken soft. When the chicken is cooked properly, sprinkle the cheese over it to enhance its taste.
Remember to never thaw the chicken in warm water or just keep it on the counter and wait for it to go soft, as germs spread to the meat at a faster rate at room temperature. The USDA advises to thaw any kind of meat using only the above mentioned methods as a safeguard against food contamination.