Chicken: Storage, Freezing, Reheating and Pregnancy Answers

This page pulls together the 29 chicken answers on the site: how long it keeps, whether you can freeze it, whether you can reheat it, how long it can be left out, what the date on the label means, where it stands in pregnancy and what applies while breastfeeding. The table gives the short answer for each; the page behind each row gives the full reasoning, the source and the exceptions.

In pregnancy: Yes — chicken is safe to eat during pregnancy as long as it is thoroughly cooked with no pink meat, and served piping hot.

Worth knowing: Cooking kills the Salmonella and Campylobacter that raw chicken carries, but it does not make the meat sterile. Bacteria from hands, chopping boards, serving spoons and the air land on it as soon as it comes off the heat, and cooked meat is moist and protein-rich, which is exactly what they like.