Is it safe to eat freezer-burnt chicken? What caused it? What can you do with it? Let's answer those questions and rescue your chicken breasts by rehydrating them.
It is easy to rescue freezer burnt chicken in broth and spices and then make Mexican shredded chicken for various uses, like enchiladas or burritos.
🐓Ingredients
Freezer burnt skinless boneless chicken breasts—thawed
Onions and garlic
Chicken broth
Tomato sauce
Pantry Ingredients—chili powder, cumin, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper
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I found a bag of those wholesale club chicken breasts in the back of the garage refrigerator freezer we replaced last week. So, this poor meat is dehydrated, tough, and tasteless. In other words, it is already a hockey puck. Time to fix it.
The process has two steps. First, rehydrate and add some flavor with chicken broth, onion, and garlic. Followed by hand shredding to eliminate waste and add more flavor with tomato sauce and spice.
You may use this rescued freezer burnt chicken in any recipe that uses rotisserie or shredded chicken. I recommend Mexican and added those flavors in the second step of the recipe.
👨🍳How to Cook Freezer Burnt Chicken
Part one—rehydration and adding some flavor
Preheat oven to 300°.
Chop onions. Also, you can trim off the worst of the freezer burn.
Add onion, 2 cans of chicken broth, 1 tablespoon crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Mix well, add chicken, and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid and move to the oven for 1 hour.
Remove from the oven and move the breasts to a plate to cool for 15 minutes. Discard the liquid except for 1 cup. Then shred it by hand.
Part two—adding lots of flavors
Add chicken and all part two ingredients back into the Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes until most of the fluid is evaporated.
Remove from heat and use in burritos, enchiladas, etc.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
✔️How to use rescued chicken
I prefer to use it for Mexican, where any "off taste" is covered by the spices. Check out these recipes, like Healthy Chicken Enchilada Casserole, Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas, or Traditional Chicken Enchilada Casserole.
The texture and taste are slightly off, but most people won't notice, especially if it is covered with cheese, great sauces, and flavors—a great way to hide those mild shortfalls.
Look for recipes that allow precooked rotisserie chicken to be added late in cooking, have a robust and flavorful sauce, and cheese is a big plus. They will never know it was freezer burnt chicken.
What is freezer burn?
Freezer burn is just dehydration of meat or other foods. In meat, it is caused by the water in the meat cells freezing and forming ice crystals that damage the cells. The water molecules can then escape the cells. With the water escaping, the taste also goes, and the texture changes. If the package is intact, you will probably see ice crystals in the package.
But even foods without cells, like ice cream, get some ice crystals for the same effect. It may or may not be due to poor storage.
No-frost freezers tend to have more of an issue with freezer burning due to the small temperature changes, which is how they are "no-frost." And the longer the period of time in the freeze, the more likely to have freezer burn.
Is it safe to eat freezer-burned chicken or other foods?
Yes. It is safe to eat freezer-burned food. It is dehydrated, not spoiled. But with the water leaving the cells, the texture and flavor deteriorated rapidly.
Since it is safe, can we rescue it by adding moisture, texture, and taste? We can add moisture, but the taste and texture will be slightly "off." We want to cover that up—an ideal job for Mexican food where we can use shredded chicken for burritos and enchiladas, with lots of flavorful sauce and cheese. On to the rescue,
How to revive freezer-burned chicken
Just cutting off the freezer burn may be acceptable if it is small. But the damage is usually deeper, and most cooking methods will pull water out of the cells. So, just cooking normally rarely gives good results.
Brining the chicken can help rehydrate the meat, and you can add some flavors to cover for the lack of flavor and occasional "off" taste. Brining is passive; if you have more than a little problem, it won't do much.
The meat with significant damage should be discarded, or we can rescue most of it by braising it. If you are unfamiliar with braising, it is heating the meat slowly in liquid in a sealed container to prevent evaporation. So, it's similar to simmering but covered.
❓FAQs
You can not always prevent freezer burn, but here are some things to help.
1) Set your freezer to 0°F and use a freezer thermometer.
2) Never put hot food in the freezer.
3) Use freezer-grade materials and containers. Use freezer paper and buy freezer zip-lock bags, not the cheap, thinner ones.
4) Thicker food, like casseroles, should have several layers of protection. I do a complete plastic wrap and two layers of aluminum foil or freezer paper.
5) Keep as much air as possible out of the storage containers—flatten that zip-lock bag.
6) Leave room for air circulation around packages and use smaller packages.
7) Keep track of how long things have been frozen.
No, this is not a good idea. The cells are severely damaged, and they will not last long frozen.
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📖 Recipe
Freezer Burnt Chicken Breasts Rescue - Shredded Mexican
Ingredients
Step 1
- 4-5 thawed freezer burnt skinless boneless chicken breast
- 28 oz chicken broth
- 2 onions - chopped medium
- 1 tablespoon garlic - crushed
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
Step 2
- 15 oz tomato sauce
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 cup broth - from step one
- onion - most of the onion from step one
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300°.
- Chop onions. You can also trim off the worst of the freezer burn.
- Add onion, 2 cans of chicken broth, 1 tablespoon crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Mix well, add chicken, and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid and move to the oven for 1 hour.
- Remove from the oven and move the breasts to a plate to cool for 15 minutes. Discard the liquid except for 1 cup. Then shred it by hand.
- Add chicken and all part two ingredients back into the Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes until most of the fluid is evaporated. Remove from heat and use in burritos, enchiladas, etc.
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Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- It is OK to trim back the worst parts.
- Do as many breasts as you want as long as they are covered by broth.
- Once rehydrated, you can change and spice and use another way.
- Be sure to hand shred so you can sort out any parts with bad texture.
- OK to refrigerate for 2-3 days, but do not refreeze.
- Some breasts are just too far gone for this to work well.
- Limit your usage to recipes that use rotisserie chicken and have flavorful sauces.
Your Own Private Notes
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Originally published July 19, 2010. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Katherine says
Hi there! I found your recipe when researching freezer burned chicken. We had 3 breasts that unfortunately got FB'ed and wanted to use them for a sort of Italian thingamajig. We rehydrated like you mentioned, adding onions and instead of cumin, Italian herbs and some bay leaves. I made a homemade sauce and added the shredded chicken to it and it was pretty good! Thanks for the awesome and quite sciencey idea!