Reheat Chicken?

JohnMF

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help....

If i make myself a big vat of chicken curry or chicken casarole, can i then freeze it into single portions and then defrost and reheat at a later date, or will i get food poisoning and die?

thanks :)
 
As long as the casserole/curry is cooked properly, frozen immediately and then re-heated properly you should be fine.Cooking/reheating properly will destroy most bacteria including Salmonella, and bacteria go dormant below 0C so they do not multiply.And on a trivia note: it is the bacteria in chicken that gives it it's flavour :lol:
 
I think it might depend on where your chicken for the casserole cames from originally. Was it fresh? Then to deep-freeze it right after cooling next to its preparation and defrost it for consumption should not do either the chicken or yourself any harm.

If it was produced from deep-fried chicken, I feel you should not freeze it again, like you never should do with anything ... i.e. deep-freeze it TWICE.

Unfortunately there are types of bacteria that don't die in the deep-freeze process and produce trillions of baby-bacteria (haha) in the defrosting process... if this is allowed to happen twice in the life of food, you get multiquadrillion of them ... and might end up with stomach cramps and diarrhea. Who knows? ;)
 
Unfortunately there are types of bacteria that don't die in the deep-freeze process and produce trillions of baby-bacteria (haha) in the defrosting process... if this is allowed to happen twice in the life of food, you get multiquadrillion of them ... and might end up with stomach cramps and diarrhea.
As I said, bacteria go dormant in the cold. They can start reproducing once they have thawed to around 0C but the usual process is to re-heat straight from frozen (usually by microwave) and the bacteria have little time to reproduce before they are killed.Cooking properly before freezing will kill most bacteria - certainly the unpleasant ones - so the food will be largely sterile anyway.Bacteria only really cause problems if food is left lying around above 0C for 12 hours or more. People over-react these days. In fact, ingesting 'bad' bacteria can be good for you as they help to get your immune systems working. More trouble is caused by people being overly clean and sterilising everything. Your immune system doesn't develop so you become susceptable to infections that 'healthy' people wouldn't succumb to.But don't listen to me. I only started out as a microbiologist specialisng in the gastro-intestinal tract :lol:
 
I only started out as a microbiologist specialisng in the gastro-intestinal tract :lol:

Well, nevertheless: good to know we have SPECIALIST on board!!! :wink: :p

And there's never to worry about my personal degree of cleanliness ... my immunity system is about BULLETproof given my penchant for cleaning... :roll: :er: :blushing: :lol:
 
help....

If i make myself a big vat of chicken curry or chicken casarole, can i then freeze it into single portions and then defrost and reheat at a later date, or will i get food poisoning and die?

thanks :)

There are several large companys that do this... Swanon, Stoffer's, Banquet, etc.

I'm a bit cautious when I do this myself. When I eat "leftovers," frozen or otherwise, I bring the temp up to boiling and keep it there for a few minutes before serving in the hopes of killing anything harmful that might be growing.

What about it, Hertz? Is this valid reasoning?
 
You'll be fine. I've done that sort of thing hundreds of times and I' *thud*







m fine.



Don't reheat rice though. Use it or throw it. There's a bacteria which lives in rice and comes to life when reheated? Something like that. Anyhoo, it's often that which gives you the food poisoning rather than the other food (chicken, fish, etc) but people never suspect the rice. :shifty:
 
Key to the process is insuring that the re-heating achieves sufficient temperature to kill any dormant bacteria. We routinely cook in quantity [soups, chili, tomato sauce, etc.] and then freeze portions for later use.
Our freezer is set at 10 dF. We use dating and FIFO.
 
You must not reheat rice????
I have done that ever so often!
Not even a stomach ache.
But my sister once severely poisened herself on fish.
She reports it feels like dying. You get soooooooooooo sick and the cramps in the stomach are sooooooooooooooo bad. She was alone and writhed over the floor with pain with no one there to help or assist or do anything for her. Poor sis. But that was years ago. She's a toughie. She also handled her heart attack by going to hospital on her own - by bike (!)

OK, I'm rambling.
Back to heating up chicken now...... ! :D
 
thanks, i will go ahead with the vat of chicken curry then, but now fernys got me abit worried about the rice. i worked in a restaurant when i was younger (washing dishes, not cooking!) and a chef told me the same thing about rice, that it is highly poisonous if not reheated properley.

having said that, i have no problem eating those horrible donna kababs from takeaways when i've had a couple of pints, and i've lived to tell the tale so i must be fairly immune to food poisoning :confused:
 
I eat re-heated rice several times each week, and so far, no ill effects. I don't think rice is somehow magical and allows bacteria to survive despite reheating. The general rule of thumb is that bacteria doesn't grow below 40F and above 140F. The goal in any food prep is to make sure the food spends as little time in between those temps.
 
I'm pretty sure my mom made rice pudding out of the leftover rice and there was never any ill effects! (mmmm, rice pudding!!)
 
If rice is that dangerous my late night snacks are a suicide mission. :p Microwaved rice from dinner. mm.
 
The easy answer to whether freezing and re-heating rice [or any other foodstuff] is inherently dangerous is to simply check and see if it is used in TV dinners or 'heat and serve' frozen foods.
 
It's a certain type which only survives in rice. If you heat it properly it should be fine and I've done it myself. Just letting you know what I've heard. ;)
 

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