Your Well Seasoned box arrives frozen, ensuring the quality and safety of your products. The key to maintaining that quality all the way through the cooking process is with proper defrosting techniques. The following works for all Well Seasoned products!
Here are some tips:
Defrost in the fridge: The best way to defrost is overnight. Place the meat in its original packaging into the refrigerator, allowing it to defrost slowly and best maintain its texture. You can also do this in the morning for that night, and if the meat isn't fully defrosted you can use the next tip to give it a boost, especially for items like our whole chickens which can take up to 48 hours to defrost in the fridge.
Defrost in water: To speed up the process, you can place the meat in its original package into a bowl (pick one that fully fits the product and allows water to surround it) and fill it with room temperature water. Pouring out the water and refilling every 30 minutes will allow the meat to defrost faster since the frozen meat is chilling the water as it defrosts (thus transferring its cold temperature into the water and allowing the meat to slowly defrost). This method will take 30 minutes- 2 hours depending on the size of the product.
Defrost in running water (fastest method): In a pinch, you can use constantly running warm (not hot) water, which will defrost the package in 15-30 minutes. While not optimal, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do! Just make sure to cook immediately since this method holds the meat at a temperature above 40°F (the max safe refrigerated temperature), and for food safety reasons you never want to wait more than 2 hours to cook and eat your food after an item has reached an internal temperature above 40°F.
Keep in mind that our Cooking Instructions assume the meat is fully thawed (unless they call for cooking from frozen), and even if an item appears thawed it may still be frozen in the center. You can test this with a thermometer or skewer to see if the center of a steak is still solid. If you follow the directions but your meat is taking a lot longer to cook than expected, its possible the meat wasn't fully thawed before cooking.
