reheating food

[curious]

I hear that reheatng chicken twice is not advised. What I had done is i reheated cookd chicken, ate it and realised some pieces werent warm enough so i put it in the microwave again. Does that count as reheating it again or is it only when it goes from the fridge to the microwave to the fridge again (extreme temperatures)... im alittle worried now because it mst have been out of the microwave around 10 minutes before i reheated it

[curious]

can someone please get back to me soon as im very anxious...

[john f.]

Your chicken should be fine. I think the logic to not re-
heating chicken twice is that after you reheat it once,
that gives bacteria a chance to grow as it cools down
again.

[curious]

so basically heating it again after 10 minutes didnt give it a chance to grow?

[john f.]

Well put it this way. If you were okay with eating the
chicken beforehand, putting it in the microwave won't make
bacteria grow any faster. Just don't put it back in the
fridge for tomorrows lunch.

[elizam]

It's fine to do that. Food generally has to be at room temperature for 2 hours before the bacteria levels start to become dangerous.

[nhernandez1194]

No, I wouldn't—rather—shouldn't worry about that. By 'reheating', they mean allowing to cool for more than two hours.

Here's an example of what's okay:

"While eating your leftover chicken and mashed potato dinner, you notice that the chicken didn't reheat all of the way. Ten minutes have passed because you were so enthralled with those wonderful potatoes. You get up to go and reheat it."

Not okay:

"After a Thanksgiving meal, you saved some turkey in a big tupperware for the next few days. You take out the tupperware, heat the whole thing up, but only take a few things, then put the container back in the fridge for tomorrow."

[dreamer]

And if you gave it a good zap in the microwave, it should definitely be okay!