Can I put warm chicken in the fridge?

[floridafam]

Just bought a pre-made chicken and cut it up to make chicken salad tomorrow.

Can I put the peices in the fridge while they are still warm?

Thanks!

 

[Pooh67_68]

 

[faithinkarma]

Not only can, but should ! The habit of not putting warm things in the fridge harkens back to the days when it would hasten the melting of the big block of ice keeping the "ice box" cold.

Anyone else remember the ice man?????

 

[IMGONNABE40!]

I always used to leave hot/warm food out of the fridge to come closer to room temp before putting in the fridge. I had heard that a local food shelter had problems with food spoiling after putting a large pan of hot mashed potatoes in their fridge. Then, I was at our church preparing food with a friend of mine who owned a restaurant and I told her I was going to leave something out to cool before putting it in the fridge. She told me that this would never pass muster with the health department, that they required food service establishements to immediately refrigerate unused food.

That being said, I still leave my food out for a bit before putting it in the fridge.

 

[Kermit]

The reason that food can go bad if it's put into the fridge while it's too hot is that the container is too large to cool quickly enough. The inside will stay warm for too long. Food should be put into the fridge as soon as possible, but large portions of things (larger than a cut up chicken) should be divided into smaller portions. As an alternative, you can put big pots of soups and similar things in an ice bath.