Frozen chicken - froze on use by date

[Bemyclementine]

Bad planning on my part, noticed it was the use by date so put the whole tray in the freezer. Had 3 meals planned from them (large tray, not the mythical mumsnet chicken...) they're impossible to separate when frozen so got to defrost the whole tray.

Is it ok to cook and refreeze? 2 meals are "dry" , one in a sauce. I guess I could cook the sauce and freeze that.

Trying to avoid waste!

Bump!

Cook and refreeze is ok, but I'm not sure how delicious the 'dry' ones would be once they'd been refrozen and defrosted again. Possibly quite a bit drier. The one in sauce I expect would be fine.

I have been known to hit frozen stuff with the hardest thing I can find (or whack it on a stone floor) to separate individual pieces...

You could try gentle defrosting in the microwave - just enough to peel off the outer portions. The inner ones would stay frozen enough to still be safe. I do this quite often. Lakeland do a product called 'interleaving film' which is brilliant for isolating small joints etc

I think you’d be best to cook all of it in sauces and then re freeze, you certainly shouldn’t partially defrost bits in the microwave to break bits off and re freeze the rest. Microwaves don’t heat particularly evenly and if you had any, unnoticed, warmer spots it would be pretty dangerous to re freeze then defrost it again to cook.

@crazeecatladee that's the sort if thing I do, but had to leave the house fir the day so just took it out of the freezer.

I agree the dryer things won't be nice. Having one today. Will cook the saucy one and refreeze.

I would let it partially defrost, prise off what I needed and put the rest back.

I know you're not supposed to but I do it regularly and never had a problem.

A quick run under a cold tap is a good way to separate frozen things