Cooking Frozen Chicken

Cooking frozen chicken is quite similar to cooking a chicken at normal temperature. The only difference is that 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. Here are a few tips which will help you to cook frozen chicken.

Useful Tips

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, out of the refrigerator, at room temperature, 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 warm water for some time. Keeping it in warm water helps in speeding up the defrosting process and hence, saves a lot of time. The only thing to remember though is that the chicken should not be taken out of its packaging if it has to be kept in warm water. Only packaged frozen chicken should be kept in warm water for defrosting.

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. There are barbeque recipes, tandoori recipes, meatloaf recipes and steak recipes, to choose from. 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.

Cooking frozen chicken, using this recipe can be quite an enjoyable experience for you. Your loved ones will enjoy the scrumptious, delicious chicken and thus, end up loving you even more.