You can tell if cooked chicken has gone bad if it gives off a rancid odor or is beginning to look grey. Once again, trust your senses. There is one simple trick to ensuring your chicken does not quickly spoil: Fresh chicken must be kept cold, so don't ever let it sit out on the counter, table, or anywhere that isn't refrigerated below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to the USDA, raw chicken will only keep in the refrigerator for about one to two days," says Sidoti. And she's right. The U. For more healthy cooking tips delivered right to your email inbox every day, sign up for our newsletter! Not sure if that chicken you bought is still good to eat? Here's what health experts and a chef say to do.
By Eat This, Not That! Read more. Once refrigerated, cooked chicken can only be kept for three days max, unless you freeze it, in which case it should last up to four months six months if used in a soup, stew, or casserole.
If you're not quite sure whether the cooked chicken in your fridge has gone bad, it may also give you an odor indicator. As chicken does tend to absorb some of the aromas of whatever else is in your fridge, the best way to check it is to take it out of the fridge, unwrap it, and then give it a good sniff.
If it smells at all funky, get rid of it. If you're still not sure, look at the color. Cooked chicken should be white or brown, so if it's starting to look a bit green or blue, consider it a safety hazard. The first rule of safe chicken consumption is as with many other things that might be lurking within your fridge : when in doubt, throw it out.
The second rule is, after following rule 1, get on the phone and order a nice, safe, freshly-prepared pizza. No matter how greasy the 'za is, your stomach will still thank you when it considers how you've spared it from upset, nausea, and other digestive horrors too distasteful to mention that you'd risk had you eaten poultry past its prime. Safety first, after all, since food poisoning is worth going to any length to avoid.
Take a good look at your chicken Shutterstock. If not, you start to wonder: is this chicken still good? This little ritual, repeated millions of times in kitchens everywhere, is something we do out of habit, almost a reflex. But can taking a whiff of chicken tell you if it's gone bad? And what does "bad" mean, anyway?
To begin with, when your chicken or any food, for that matter goes bad, it's because of bacteria. Bacteria are very tiny, very simple organisms that live on our food, which they eat, and where they also reproduce. As a result of them inhabiting and eating our food, they produce changes in that food that cause it to go "bad. There are two kinds of bad: there's smelly-bad, and then there's might-make-you-sick bad. What's important to note is that these two kinds of bad are caused by completely different sorts of bacteria.
And, since avoiding the might-make-you-sick kind of bad aka food poisoning is a far more crucial concern, we'll address that one first. Food poisoning is caused by certain bacteria that—either because of toxins they produce or because they attack the cells in our digestive tracts cause the various symptoms that we identify as feeling sick—nausea, diarrhea, and so on.
Examples of these microbes known as pathogens are Salmonella and E. Salmonella happens to be the most common cause of food poisoning, and it's particularly prevalent in uncooked poultry. There's both bad news and good news when it comes to chicken that is contaminated by one of these pathogens.
The bad news is, there's no way to tell that it's contaminated: not by looking at it, not by smelling it, and not by touching it. These bacteria are completely undetectable. In other words, a piece of chicken that's contaminated with Salmonella will not only appear to be completely "fresh," it can, in fact, be absolutely fresh.
The good news, however, is that bacteria of this type are incredibly easy to kill. All you have to do is cook the chicken. The standard guideline, as given by the FDA, is that chicken should be cooked to an internal temperature of F for at least 30 seconds, and doing so, will reliably kill any harmful bacteria that it might harbor.
This makes it extremely easy to ensure that your chicken won't make you sick. Just cook it thoroughly. Now, there are quality issues with cooking chicken to that temperature—specifically chicken breasts , which when they reach F are considered overcooked, meaning they'll be dry and stringy.
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