Frozen Chicken?!

Jaguar_Skills

I stupidly had to defrost 2.5kg of chicken yesterday as it had all frozen together in the freezer because I didn’t separate it.  Made a pie with some of it, cooked some of it in slow cooker then left the rest of it to slowly defrost in fridge.  My question is with the pie, and slow cooked chicken am I ok to reheat it again once?  I was going to cook the other lot of defrosted chicken in slow cooker today as use it up over next 3-4 days I’m just not sure about reheating it, or is it refreezing that is a no no?

shykins

if it was raw when defrosted and then you have cooked it, you can refreeze it  once cooked and cooled no problem

Jaguar_Skills

Most of it was there may have been some partially frozen.  The stuff in the fridge now will be fully defrosted as left it overnight. 

So are you saying for the stuff in the slow cooker ie the now cooked chicken (as I left it on overnight) I can freeze it again? Then reheat it in another dish some other time? I thought that was the worst thing you can do.  So confused!

comeandgo

You can cook frozen chicken then freeze the cooked items again.  Just make sure when reheating the cooked items they are given a chance to get heated right through.  Do you think all the frozen chicken pies and chicken dishes in the supermarkets were made with fresh chicken originally?  Not at the cheap prices they sell for.

Pollycat

This was discussed a few days ago.

This post gives a link to NHS

JIL said:

It even tells you that you can on the nhs website. If you need even more conformation.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-store-food-and-leftovers/

Quote 

Refreezing meat and fish

Never refreeze raw meat (including poultry) or fish that has been defrosted.

You can cook frozen meat and fish once defrosted, and then refreeze them.

-taff

you cannot refeeze something that was uncooked and remains uncooked

you can refreeeze anything that you thaw from uncooked and then cook as long as it's cooked. [ e.g cottage pie made with frozen mince]

You can reheat any number of times you like as long as you heat to boiling [ in the case of soups and stews or anything else that can be reheated to that hot]. You can reheat most things more than once it just depends on what it is, and will the flavour or texture be adversely affected by reheating lots of times [ things like quiche...]

I made a lasagne Thursday We ate it on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and each time the lasagne went in the oven to be reheated. [ It was a big lasagne.]

joedenise

I always make enough for 4 portions even though there are only 2 of us and freeze the excess 2 portions as don't really like eating the same thing 2 days running.

With chicken I always freeze something from the leftovers, be it a curry, a pie or just slices for another meal.

Any

Cook the defrosted chicken into different meals and freeze
Cooked curries freeze beautifully, stews freeze well too.
You cannot refreeze defrosted RAW meat. You need to cook it first.

I think some TV programmes confuse people, because they sometimes let unqualified overcautious people talk rubbish. You might be pretty and have tastebuds for good recipes, but unless you studied it don't give random advice on food health&safety! If you know something from long experience you just dismiss it, but young people & beginners can be left confused or just with wrong facts for the rest of their life
Colleague recently at work said to me-but would you freeze pork? You can only cook it the same week (date on pack) you buy it, you cannot freeze it.
I have no idea where that idea could even come from! 😳