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I cooked up some fresh chicken two days (Saturday) ago and stored it in my fridge sealed in some Tupperware. I made a delicious wrap for work this morning with the same chicken from the fridge, got to work, but forgot to put it back on the fridge about an hour and a half after I initially took it out.

I see that the FDA states two hours is the safe threshold for freshly cooked chicken (straight from the oven), but does this change if the chicken wasn’t immediately cooked? That is, keeping cooked chicken that was refrigerated out at room temp?

Thank you, from a constant worrier

brennvo
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2 Answers2

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It's very different if food starts out hot, as in fresh out of the oven, or cold, as in came out of the fridge. There is much more differential between oven temperature and room temperature than between fridge and room temperatures. That means that hot chicken will cool considerably faster than cold chicken will warm up. The slope of the exponential rate of change will be much steeper when starting with hot chicken than with cold.

in short, you get a lot more time in your situation than the canonical 2h stated for the hot chicken.

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Generally - No, a cumulative 2 h at room temp is considered the limit for any food stuff before spoilage is likely to occur

bob1
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