Can I cook meat from frozen?

The question is really about how long the middle of the food takes to get out of the danger zone. A 2cm burger transits it in minutes. A 2kg frozen joint takes hours to thaw in the middle while the outside cooks, and that is the situation to avoid.

Safety

Step by step

1. Sort the food by thickness, not by weight.Anything under about 3–4cm thick — sausages, burgers, chops, steaks, chicken breasts, fish fillets — is a reasonable candidate. Anything thicker, and any whole bird or rolled joint, is not. Thickness governs how long the centre spends between 5°C and 60°C.
2. Never put frozen meat in a slow cooker.A slow cooker heats gently by design. Frozen meat in one can sit for hours in the growth range before it ever reaches a safe temperature. Defrost first, in the fridge, then use the slow cooker as normal. The same reasoning applies to a very low oven.
3. Use the methods that get heat in fast.Oven roasting at a normal temperature, a hot pan finished in the oven, an air fryer, a grill, or simmering. Avoid methods where the surface is not hot: a barely warm pan, a low oven, a slow cooker, or a sealed foil parcel at low temperature.
4. Allow roughly half as long again.As a rule of thumb, frozen items take about 50% longer than the same thing defrosted. Frozen sausages 30–35 minutes in a 200°C oven; frozen burgers around 20–25; a frozen chicken breast 30–40. These are starting points, not answers.
5. Probe every single piece, not one of them.Frozen items cook unevenly. One sausage may be fine while its neighbour has an ice core. Poultry, mince, burgers and sausages must all be cooked thoroughly throughout — check the centre of the thickest item and, if in doubt, check a second one.
6. Sear afterwards, not before.A frozen steak has a wet, icy surface and will not brown. Cook it through in the oven first, dry the surface, then sear it in a very hot pan for under a minute a side. This is the reverse sear and it happens to be the best method for a frozen steak.
7. Expect a quality cost and manage it.Cooking from frozen usually costs you moisture at the surface, browning, and any chance of seasoning penetrating. Season the outside heavily after the ice has gone, and accept that a good defrosted result will beat a good frozen one.

Tips

• Freeze in the form you will cook in. Mince frozen flat in a bag breaks up in a pan; mince frozen in a block does not. Burgers frozen with paper between them separate; a stack does not.
• A frozen steak cooked by reverse sear is genuinely good, and some cooks prefer it — the frozen core means the middle stays rare while the outside sears.
• You can refreeze raw meat that you have cooked. You should not refreeze raw meat that you only defrosted.
• Frozen mince is best broken up with a wooden spoon as it thaws in the pan, adding it to a hot pan a piece at a time so the pan does not flood.

Common mistakes

• Roasting a frozen chicken — The cavity and the deep thigh joint stay near freezing for hours while the breast overcooks. It is both unsafe and unpleasant. Defrost it in the fridge, allowing a full day per two kilograms.
• Judging frozen sausages or burgers by their colour — The outside browns long before the middle has thawed, let alone cooked. Colour is not evidence at the best of times and it is worse than useless here.
• Defrosting on the worktop to save time — The surface reaches growth temperature hours before the middle thaws. Fridge, cold water in a sealed bag, or the microwave followed immediately by cooking are the three safe methods.

Questions people ask