How to Cook Boneless, Skinless Frozen Chicken Breasts Without Thawing Them
Boneless, skinless frozen chicken breasts may not be the sexiest piece of meat on the market, but their convenience and affordability cannot be denied. While they lack pizzazz on their own, you can cheer them up without too much trouble. Honestly, my biggest problem with chicken was never making them taste good, but I remembered taking them out of the freezer the night before I was about to cook them.
Fortunately, there are ways to get around this. You can make delicious meals with frozen chicken breasts – you just need to know how to approach them, and we have a few strategies you can use to do this.
Strategy # 1: Super Thin Slices
Supercooled meat is very easy to cut. In fact, putting any meat in the freezer for just half an hour makes it much easier to get those beautiful thin slices. If the only chicken you have on hand is frozen breast, take advantage of its icy nature for a quick fry.
First, you need to wait a couple of minutes to allow it to warm up enough so that the knife doesn’t bounce off of it. Use this time to chop the vegetables and collect any other ingredients you want to use.
Once the chicken can be sliced, cut it very thinly with a sharp knife or mandolin. The chicken will become quite slippery when defrosting, so wear cut-resistant gloves and, if using a mandolin, use protection as soon as you get to the smaller piece of chicken. When everything is diced, you can cook.
Any roast will work, but I prefer to cook the mushrooms over medium heat until lightly browning, then turn the heat up and add the chicken, some onion, and chopped ginger. When the chicken is done, I’ll add a couple of drops of soy sauce, about half a tablespoon of fish sauce, and some rice vinegar. (I recommend adding a little of each, trying and adjusting as you see fit.) If I want to get really cocky, I’ll add a pinch of beurre manie — a paste made of equal parts butter and flour by weight — to thicken everything. After the chicken is seasoned with the sauce, serve with rice or on a cushion of wilted greens. (I used mustard greens because that’s what I currently kept in my refrigerator.)
Strategy # 2: Cook Slowly with Other Delicious Foods
Imagine this scene: you wake up, get ready for work and go to the kitchen to cook and forget about that evening meal, but find that you forgot to transfer the chicken from the fridge to the freezer. Don’t panic, it doesn’t really matter; Most multicooker chicken recipes are great for frozen chicken. In fact, depending on how long you need to stay at work, it might work to your advantage, as cooler chicken will extend your cooking time. (A quick note on food safety: depending on the multicooker used, the frozen chicken may not heat up to the safe 160 ℉ temperature as quickly as usual, which means your food may waste too much time hanging out. »40 ° F to 140 ° F. If you are concerned about this, or if you are cooking for someone with an increased risk of foodborne illness, you can skip this cooking method and set a reminder to defrost your chicken.)
Let’s be honest: Slow cooked chicken breasts are usually nothing to write about, especially if you can’t brown them before throwing them in the slow cooker due to their frozen nature. It’s easy to fix this problem by making the chicken play second or fourth fiddle over other super tasty ingredients like cream cheese. (I always feel like using cream cheese in anything is kind of cheating, but if cream cheese is wrong, I just sit here and feel comfortable, how wrong I am.)
As I said, technically frozen chicken breast can be used in any multicooker recipe, but this is my favorite way of making them. In addition to four chicken breasts, you will need:
- 8 ounces chopped mushrooms
- 1/2 cup flavored broth
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 1 tablespoon brine capers
- 3 fresh basil leaves, one large sprig of oregano, and a couple of parsley stalks. Remove the leaves from the stems and chop finely.
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- salt and pepper for flavor
Cook the mushrooms in a skillet until they are nice color and crunchy around the edges – this adds a nice umami and that “brown” flavor that we don’t get from chicken – then scrape them off with your multicooker along with their liquid. Toss the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan and cook for four hours over high or for six hours over low heat, depending on how hot your slow cooker is. I used my Instant Pot and my meal was ready in four. Chop the chicken with two forks, toss everything together for a creamy sauce, and serve with pasta, rice, or a layer of vegetables.
Sprinkle fresh basil on top if you feel like it.
Strategy # 3: Sous Vide (then Pan Fry) It
You knew I was going to go there . In fact, you can watch any frozen meat; you just need to increase the time your food spends in the bath. To adjust the cooking time to suit the cold chunk of chicken, ChefSteps recommends increasing it by 50% . To get this number, you simply divide the original cooking time by two and then add it to the original cooking time. For example, I usually cook chicken breasts at 140 ℉ for an hour and a half (90 minutes). Half 90 is 45, so my new cook time is two hours and fifteen minutes (135 minutes).
After answering the question about the time, you can cook the chicken as usual. Boneless and skinless breasts don’t have a lot of fat, so be sure to add some oil, salt, and aromas such as garlic and herbs in there. I seasoned with my own salt, then added a couple of butter chunks, a clove of minced garlic, and a healthy sprig of rosemary.
As soon as he hung in our little jacuzzi for his spell, I needed to touch up a little. Since there is no skin on these items, I decided to quickly dip them in flour to ease browning and add some texture. I quickly fried a floured piece of meat in a pan and was rewarded with a tender, juicy and aromatic cutlet.
How you want to serve your juicy chicken breast is up to you, but obviously there are many options. I ate mine with nothing at the kitchen counter, but you can be a little more civilized and make a side dish or something.