Food - Drink
The Only Time It's Safe To Refreeze Raw Chicken
By STEPHANIE FRIEDMAN
The most important rule when preparing chicken is to ensure it's fully cooked before consuming, since undercooked chicken can cause food poisoning. However, improperly storing meat can also make you sick, and while re-freezing raw chicken that has already been frozen and defrosted once is usually a big "no," there is an exception.
If your chicken was thawed in the microwave or in a bowl of cold water, it needs to be fully cooked before it is refrozen; simply tossing it back in the freezer will make it dangerous to eat. However, if you defrosted your chicken in the fridge, you should be okay to refreeze it within two days of its defrost date.
When chicken is thawed in a microwave or in a bowl of cold water — which does a somewhat uneven job —some parts of the meat are brought into the room-temperature "danger zone" that fosters bacterial growth, which can only be neutralized by cooking. Meanwhile, the fridge keeps the chicken cold as it thaws, so it’s safe to refreeze it.