Can you re-freeze meat that was frozen, thawed then cooked?

No once thawed you can't defrost again

Once it's cooked you can as long as you let it cool down before you freeze it again.

No but once it's cooked it could be frozen again. You could make a massive batch of ragu and put the unused half in the freezer.

I think LilMissRed is right. You could always keep the half you don't want now in the fridge and reheat it for tomorrows dinner.

ETA: I am very cautious with this kind of thing though, so it could just be my fussy ways coming out.

I would say no to freezing again- make a huge batch of something and freeze it? Its always good for quick dinners.

I've done it loads of times and my mum used to when I was growing up.

aaahh

I normally leave it too cool down on the side and then freeze from there.

Have asked chefy MrMini- he says this is the best way to go so it must be true!

The problem with freezing/thawing/cooking cycles is the time at which the food is at the right temperature for bugs to grow. Bugs grow best at, say room temp up to tepid warm. They don't grow in a freezer. Most, if not all, will be killed by cooking. So a rule of thumb is that something should only pass through the room temp phase once before cooking (or reheating to an adequate temp).

This.

Well I don't eat meat but OH does.

The rules of defrosting don't only apply to meat. I apply it universally.

I have frozen raw mince on the day of purchase, then cooked a chilli and cooled half of it then frozen it to beaten another day.

I would never re-freeze defrosted meat. Some meats in our butchers have been frozen already so this would mean they will have been defrosted 3 times before consumption if I did this.

Yes refreezing will be fine.

There is actually nothing wrong with freezing itself, it doesn't magically create harmful bacteria or accelerate their growth, in fact it does the opposite, it actually slows or even stops the growth of harmful bacteria.

The saying you can't safely re-freeze is an old wives tale, it's just like when my girlfriend used to tell me I can't cook a chicken breast from frozen saying "you can't cook frozen meat". She felt very strongly about it and told me that all her life she was told that it's very dangerous by her mother. It didn't matter when I said that the chicken breast was thin so will heat all the way through, or that when we take it out of the oven we can check to make sure it's fully cooked all the way through.

Nope, all my reasoning and the fact I had don't it 100's of times before didn't make any difference, it was still dangerous... until we walked down the frozen aisle of a supermarket one day and picked up a bag of frozen chicken breast and she didn't bat an eyelid.

I am sure I saw an Iceland advert that was advertising chicken that can be cooked from frozen with no need to defrost. I was always told to defrost it thoroughly first ?

Yeah they do sell it, but I wouldn't call it chicken ?

I think there must have been some kind of blanket recommendations in cookery classes at school, as it's simpler and safer to just say you can't cook any meat from frozen, rather than explain what thickness/temperature it becomes unsafe to cook frozen meat.

Basically small/thin cuts can be cooked from frozen, large cuts 'generally' need to be defrosted.

With regards to re-freezing, I think the issue would be people would lose track of how old the meet is, for instance you don't want people getting a joint out the freezer, leaving it in the fridge for 5 days, then deciding they are not going to eat it, re-freeze it. Get it back out of the freezer in a year's time, then leaving it in the fridge for another 5 days forgetting that the joint has already had five days worth of deterioration in the fridge and has now gone off by the time they eat it.

I think the 'cook from frozen' meat that is advertised as such is treated before freezing to enable you to do so. I've tried it and although H and the boys didn't notice the difference I could certainly taste the difference between that and a fresh chicken breast that had been thawed. . . . .

Yes I have certainly tasted the difference myself, but not with all frozen chicken. I think they probably do pump more chemicals in to the meat to bulk it up. I bet with frozen chicken they can load it full of the stuff without fear of it oozing out like fresh'ish chicken as the fluid is frozen, however I don't think the chemicals are specifically to make the meat safe to cook from frozen.

Just had a quick search on google for more info, found a thread on with someone asking if it's safe to cook frozen chicken.

/recipes/home/?id=28885

Poisinous gas ?

Fresh, frozen, defrosted whatever... Iceland frozen 'meat' is rank.

Here Here!!!! ?

Maybe the gas was due to an upset stomach? ?

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