— Londari Trice

And the answer is, Absolutely, yes. Uh, chicken can be cooked and it can be stored in the freezer. Uh, with very good outcomes uh, upon thawing. Now, You know, a couple things to keep in mind. When we cook chicken number one, there's a common tendency. To overcook chicken. And the chicken breast, which is lowest in fat, is going to be the least forgiving, as you end up pushing out a lot of the moisture content, which quickly results in a dry tissue, a dry meat. And so the challenge here is to cook the chicken. And I'm going to take 2 approaches here. If we're going to cook it all the way done. We want to cook it just at the edge of doneness. And, you know, use a thermometer and um, You can typically cook it to a touch under 165 degrees Fahrenheit and carry over cooking will will nudge it up to 165, which is that usual benchmark of safe cooking for chicken and other things. Okay, generally, okay, but specifically there are other examples outside of this particular discussion. Um, so this way, the chicken's all done, you can freeze it, uh, and then upon thawing, you can go ahead and just eat it, uh, cold, or you can reheat it, you know, either way and you're safe. Now, the other issue in this sequence here is that the freeze thaw cycle will expel some of the moisture in the chicken. And so that process alone also dries it out. So if you're overcooking it and then you're also freezing it and thawing it, you have the risk of this, uh, 2 stage drying out, right, of the chicken. So, keep that in mind and uh, uh, don't keep it in the freezer for an extended period of time. Uh, we're familiar with uh, freezer burn, right? Which is essentially the drying out of items in the freezer. So uh, have a plan. 1st label and date the item as it goes into the freezer, have a plan to utilize it, ideally within, I'd say a couple months or so. And um, you know, is it going to be good for longer than that? Sure it is. It is the, there's not going to be any risk to your health if you keep it in there for 6 months or a couple of years. But, you know, the, the aesthetic will decline over time. So use it sooner than later. Now the other approach here in the cooking of the chicken is to maybe cook it, say, 75 or 80% done. And then freeze it. Again, use it within a reasonably short period of time, but label it as being undercooked so that when you thaw it and and utilize it. You know that you need to heat treat it, right? Or cook it further to finish. And this is a nice way to preserve moisture, okay, in the chicken because it wasn't overcooked to begin with. All right, so you can choose either of these paths and the outcomes can be very, very good. You just need to be careful, uh, in the heat that you apply in method number one, and then be careful to that you, you label the product and then finish cooking it with method number two. Okay? Practice makes better. So hope you give this a try. Thank you.