Page Contents
How Long Can Chicken Be Out Of The Fridge
Chicken can remain out of the fridge for about several hours at room temperature. You can also place it in the fridge for about 2 to 3 days. By freezing, you are actually increasing the shelf life of the chicken. Make sure that you should pack it in an airtight container before freezing. Freezing will affect the taste of the chicken.
Whether chicken is cooked or uncooked, you get one-hour window in which you can keep the meat outside the refrigerator. Let us say chicken is taken out of the fridge longer than 2 hours — remember the two-hour rule when you are cooking.
You may even be able to return cooked chicken to the refrigerator 3 or 4 days later, before it goes bad. If your chicken is raw, you want to cook the chicken within one to two days of keeping it in the refrigerator. The general rule is that raw meat, specifically chicken, may be kept for one to two days in the refrigerator.
Uncooked chicken, and other meats, for that matter, can be kept safely for up to two days in the fridge. Whether it is cooked or uncooked, chicken can be left out at room temperature for up to two hours before you need to either store it refrigerated, freeze it, or throw it out. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, you can safely leave raw chicken at room temperature for up to two hours, or up to 60 minutes if it is over 90 degrees F.
Additionally, the chicken may be rendered inedible even more quickly if the temperature of that room is between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes, a rooms temperature may be so hot that a chicken — cooked or not — could be inedible in under two hours. Knowing how long cooked chicken can stay at room temperature is important, as allowing chicken to sit at room temperature for more than two hours could be hazardous.
Even if you have sealed the cooked chicken in a container, it should last for just two hours if you have 90F temperatures or lower, or for an hour or less if you have 90F temperatures or higher. Now that you know about the danger zones of food preservation, it is important to remember that cooked chicken exposed to room temperature temperatures higher than 90degF (32.2degC) should be refrigerated for one hour, not two hours as recommended for foods exposed to lower room temperatures. Cooked chicken, or any food exposed to these dangerous-zone temperatures, should be refrigerated within two hours to prevent making people sick should they eat the cooked chicken. Generally, perishable foods, like raw chicken, should not be left outside of the refrigerator for longer than two hours, or an hour if room temperatures are warmer.
| Types | Shelf Life |
| Fridge | 2 days |
| Freezer | 12 months |
| Room Temperature | 2 hours |
Cooked chickens may be left outside for up to 2 hours at room temperature, whether or not they are stored in any kind of preservation tools. In general, cooked meats, especially chicken, should not be left out for longer than 2 hours. Frozen chickens should not be left out longer than two or three hours, or even shorter periods in warmer climates. If the frozen chicken is defrosted in the refrigerator, defrosted chicken can be kept in the refrigerator for another 1 to 2 days before cooking.
If you’re interested in Can You Use Distilled White Vinegar For Cooking, take a look at my other article
Most would advise against leaving the defrosted chicken outside longer than an hour. Thawed chicken needs to be cooked within a couple hours of being thawed, at the latest. Also, the 2 hours rule is always there when it comes to cooking, so be sure to keep that in mind before taking your chicken out of the fridge (bacteria can grow in 2 hours). In fact, it is not a good idea to keep the chicken marinated in any longer than 24 hours.
Even if your chicken still looks and smells fine, if it has been sitting above 40F (4.4C) for over two hours, and is not cooking, then your chicken needs to be thrown out.
While it is okay to eat chicken that is been brought down to room temperature, if it is been this way for longer than 2 hours, it is more likely to contain bacteria that can cause food poisoning. It is dangerous to leave chicken sitting at room temperature for longer than two hours, or one hour or less if the room temperature is 90degF (32.2degC) or warmer, because chickens can easily pick up bacteria, which causes food poisoning, which can have severe consequences. Handling chicken that has been defrosted, or other meat products, outside the safe temperature range for more than 2 hours or longer, may result in food poisoning from bacteria. If you keep raw chicken breasts at a warmer temperature, then it will take less time to get your chicken contaminated, because the harmful bacteria grow faster in a warmer environment.
If you’re interested in Can You Consume Fast Food During Pregnancy, take a look at my other article
If your raw chicken is tightly sealed and kept on a lower shelf towards the back of your refrigerator, you can increase its shelf life by a few hours. It does not matter how well your raw chicken is wrapped: If it is been left outside for more than 2 hours, you need to throw it away. You can only store chicken that is been in the freezer contaminated for a specific period before it starts spoiling.
If you think that you are not going to eat your chicken for three or four days, then freezing is your best bet. If you purchase a fresh chicken for cooking, and then for some reason change plans, and no longer will cook it within the recommended timeframe discussed earlier, then of course, you could freeze it. For a safe storage temperature of your prepared chicken in your freezer, you may want your chicken stored in a sealed container, or in plastic freezer bags, and stored at 0degF (17.78degC) or lower for 3 or 4 months. If you store the chicken in an airtight bag, and make sure that there is no water remaining in the container, that chicken may last for up to 9 months.
Now that I have established that chicken, or really, any cooked food, cannot be left outside in the open overnight, let us figure out how many hours at what exact room temperature you can keep cooked chicken. Even though you may follow the recommendation of a day or two, along with proper cooling and freezing recommendations, there is still the possibility of the chicken going bad.
By eating a chicken that has been left outside for more than 2 hours, you run the risk of getting sick with symptoms such as vomiting, aches, fever, chills, and diarrhea.
Is it safe to eat chicken left out overnight?
More than two hours of room temperature storage of cooked chicken should certainly result in its disposal. The same is true for cooked chicken eaten outside, such as during a picnic or BBQ. But after an hour, cooked chicken is dangerous to eat if the temperature is over 90°F (32.2°C) inside or outside.
Can you leave the chicken out for 4 hours?
More than two hours should not be spent letting the cooked chicken sit at room temperature. Bacteria will have had enough time to proliferate and possibly cause food poisoning after two hours. You can feel sick to your stomach, throw up, or have diarrhea when this happens.
What can substitute for chicken broth?
Chicken broth can easily be replaced with vegetable broth because they are both quite similar in taste and appearance. This is something you must have on hand! If your recipe calls for a tiny amount of broth to thin out a soup, stew, or sauce or to deglaze a pan, consider using water instead.