Pre-Cooked Meat

Question

I have an idea to pre-cook chicken, sauces, in spices etc and then freeze in batches. I can then use the precooked chicken to whip up quick dishes for dinner.

My question is: if I have leftovers (after "whipping up dinner") is it safe to re-heat the next day?

I always was told never to heat food twice so in this case, I'd have cooked it, fridgerated or frozen it, and then heated it again and then one more time for leftovers...

would this be dangerous/make me sick?

Also, how long would cooked chicken keep in the fridge?

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:33

Yes, you can do this.

The controlling principal is that time spent frozen essentially stops the clock on the spoilage. The total time that the chicken or other ingredient spends should not exceed either of:

2 hours at room temperature
2-4 days total at refrigerator temperatures

These times are total for the life cycle of the ingredient, from when you buy it to when you finally eat it (or discard it).

Pre-Cooked Meat

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