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Here are just two of the most common mistakes people make every day when cooking chicken. Some of these are downright dangerous!

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Thawing It Slowly

You're planning on having chicken for dinner, so you pull a pack out of the freezer. You put it on a plate on your kitchen counter and leave it there until you're ready to cook it, by which time it is nicely thawed. Unfortunately, while this is an easy and convenient way to get thawed meat without making much of an effort, it's also an easy and convenient way to get food poisoning. That's because the first part of the chicken to thaw will be the outside, which then remains at near-room temperature for several hours until the rest of the meat follows suit. Room temperature, or around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, is conveniently inside the temperature range most preferred by bacteria (40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit). So all the time it takes for the inside of your favorite chicken muscle to thaw, could be all the time salmonella (and other nasty bacteria) needs to multiply and leave you with a “bad taste in your mouth,” AKA food poisoning.

A better way to thaw your meat is to place it inside a sealed Ziplock bag, and submerge it in cold water. By regularly replacing the water as it cools, you can bring the snowbird out of stasis much faster, and without giving bacteria hours and hours of their favorite sweater weather.

Cooking Straight From The Fridge

Even if your chicken has never been frozen, that doesn't mean you're safe to throw it straight on the grill. If chicken is cooked immediately after being removed from the fridge, and especially if you try to cook it too fast, you might end up with a deliciously browned outside, but a stomach-crampingly undercooked interior. While you certainly don't want to leave the meat out on the counter for hours, leaving it there for 15 minutes to let it warm up (bacteria tends to start doubling after 20 minutes) will help ensure it cooks more evenly when it finally reaches the heat. If you also use a meat thermometer to confirm the inside reaches 165 degrees, and don't try to cook too fast, then your culinary efforts will fill the hole in your appetite, but not the one in your doctor's wallet.

Other mistakes include being careless when handling uncooked chicken; removing the bones and skin, which can dry out the meat; and cooking the chicken past 165 degrees, which can also dry out the meat and give it a leathery texture.

Even the most experienced cooks are guilty of making a few cooking mistakes here and there, so don't fret if these errors sound all-too-familiar. We've made our share of mistakes when preparing chicken, but on the bright side, fixing those mistakes makes the meal so much more delicious!

Article Source: Mashed