Breaded chicken is one of those comfort food meats that everyone loves, from the youngest members of the family right up to the oldest! What would make this family meal even more perfect would be if you could batch cook and store them in the freezer.
Can You Freeze Breaded Chicken?
Yes, you can freeze breaded chicken for up to 3 months. To freeze breaded chicken, cook and cool it before freezing on a baking tray. Once frozen solid, they can be transferred to a freezer bag and stored in the freezer.
Do Does Breaded Chicken freeze well? Yes
Can you refreeze Breaded Chicken? No
How to Freeze Breaded Chicken
As mentioned above, freezing breaded chicken is fairly easy to do but it does take a little bit of prep work to get it right and to keep your frozen chicken tasting fresh and delicious:
- Cook and Cool: Prepare your breaded chicken as you normally would or follow one of the many recipes for preparing and cooking the chicken. Allow the chicken to cool completely.
- Place Onto a Baking Tray: Pop the chicken onto a baking sheet lined with waxed parchment paper and put it in the freezer. You need to make sure you can lay the baking sheet flat in the freezer.
- Freeze: Let the chicken freeze for a few hours so that it is completely frozen all the way through.
- Wrap: Remove the baking sheet and chicken from the freezer and wrap each piece individually in clingfilm.
- Bag Up: Add your pieces of wrapped chicken to a freezer bag or airtight container.
- Freeze: Label and pop them back into the freezer.
This method can be used for any breaded chicken pieces, breaded meat and even schnitzel.
3 Tips for Freezing Breaded Chicken
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing breaded chicken to have the best results:
Flash Freeze
By flash freezing on a tray initially, you prevent each piece from sticking to one another making it far easier to grab one or two pieces of breaded chicken as you need them.
Don’t Defrost
As you should freeze breaded chicken cooked, you can actually reheat it from frozen. Simply place onto a preheated baking tray and cook in the oven for around 20 minutes until hot through.
Add Flavour to Breadcrumbs
If you’re breading the chicken yourself then try adding some herbs, spices or seasonings to the breadcrumbs to give your chicken that added hit of flavour.
How Long Can You Freeze Breaded Chicken?
Breaded chicken can keep in the freezer for up to 3 months but with such an easy and delicious meal to hand, they probably won’t last this long!
After this time, the chicken can start to deteriorate and will lose its flavour.
If stored in an airtight container or good-quality bag, breaded chicken will last for around 4 days in the fridge.
How Do You Defrost Breaded Chicken?
Perhaps, the thing that makes this dish so easy for busy people is that this is one food item that you don’t want to defrost before cooking!
The chicken is already cooked through so you just need to pop it into the oven and cook until it is completely thawed and heated up all the way through.
This can take around 15 to 20 minutes in an average oven but make sure you check it is piping hot all the way through before serving.
If you did try to defrost breaded chicken before cooking you would likely find that the breadcrumbs would end up soggy instead of crunchy so make life easy for yourself and cook it from frozen.
Can You Refreeze Breaded Chicken?
With it being meat, you do need to be wary when refreezing it. It should be perfectly safe in most cases.
Having said that, with all frozen products, we would recommend trying to defrost only what you need at a given time to avoid needing to refreeze something.
Does Breaded Chicken Freeze Well?
Breaded chicken does freeze very well as long as you follow the above steps.
There is very little change in texture and flavour – not enough for most people to notice and it is such an easy meal to prepare and cook that it is well worth it.
Related FAQs
If you’ve still got questions about freezing breaded chicken or chicken in general, then these may help:
f you’ve coated chicken in a batter as opposed to breadcrumbs then the good news is that yes, you can freeze battered chicken for around 3 months.
Chicken cutlets can also be frozen. Wrap each cutlet in a sheet of cling film before placing it into a thick freezer bag. Make sure you keep raw meat away from cooked meat in the freezer.
Sources
We have verified the information on this page using the following resources:
