Chicken nuggets are a snack or meal that is beloved by both adults and children.
Whether you make them at home or pick some up from a fast food place, they aren’t food that’s intended to be kept as leftovers (like Chinese food, for example). They just taste much better fresh!
However, sometimes you just can’t finish a whole portion, or if you have kids you know that not everything gets finished at mealtimes.
So, how should you store your nuggets, and what happens if you leave them out on your counter or kitchen table overnight? Can you still eat them?
You should not eat chicken nuggets that have been sitting at room temperature for more than two hours. According to the FDA, when perishable foods are left at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, bacteria in the food develop at a fast rate. Chicken nuggets from fast-food chains contain preservatives, but they’re still not safe to leave out overnight, or for more than two hours.
Knowing that, you should take care to properly refrigerate your leftover chicken nuggets or dispose of the one or two that you can’t finish.
Read on to find out everything you need to know about the specifics of keeping and storing leftover nuggets.
How To Tell If Your Chicken Nuggets Have Gone Bad
If you’re unsure about the quality of your chicken nuggets the thing you definitely don’t want to do is taste them. Inspect your chicken nuggets first and look for signs that they have gone off.
These signs will most commonly include a foul, sharp smell. If it doesn’t seem like the odor your nuggets are giving off is characteristic of only meat and breading then you should not risk eating them.
Spoiled chicken nuggets will likely have a change in appearance in addition to, or in lieu of, a change of smell. Anything that feels slimy or looks like it is greying should not be consumed.
Chicken nuggets from fast-food restaurants contain a lot of extra stuff that homemade or even frozen nuggets don’t. This may lead to a deceptively fresh appearance even if the nuggets are spoiled.
If you have fast-food chicken nuggets and they look perfectly fine but you know they are several days old, I would recommend cutting them in half and checking for weird smells or a change in texture on the inside.
How Long Is It Safe to Keep Chicken Nuggets at Room Temperature?
The standard rule for keeping cooked food out at room temperature is that it should hit the refrigerator somewhere around the two-hour mark from when it has been fully cooked.
You may be tempted to forgo this when it comes to chicken nuggets, especially ones from fast-food chains. Those things seem indestructible.
However, it is important to keep in mind that meat is especially prone to collecting bacteria if it is not stored in a cool enough environment.
Will eating a chicken nugget that has been out on the counter for 3 hours kill you or make you sick? That’s super unlikely. There is, of course, wiggle room in the 2-hour rule but the rule exists only to let people know that bacteria growth becomes more active the longer food is left unrefrigerated.
What Can Happen if You Eat Chicken Nuggets Left Out Overnight?
You should definitely avoid eating any meat products that have been left out overnight.
While the chicken nuggets might look fine, the hours in which they’ve been exposed to the warm air have allowed a lot of bacteria to enter them.
Eating chicken nuggets that have been left out overnight won’t necessarily bring you any severe or lasting harm but it is still a risky move.
You can develop symptoms as light as stomach cramps and nausea or as severe as vomiting, diarrhea, and intense headaches.
There is a lot of discourse on the internet where you will find people saying that they leave their food out all the time and have never gotten sick.
Maybe that is true but my advice is to always refrigerate your leftovers when you are done eating because it’s so simple and eliminates even the smallest chance of getting sick.
How Long Can Frozen Chicken Nuggets Sit Out?
If you are thawing your frozen chicken nuggets at room temperature, you should either refrigerate them or cook them once they are thawed.
Once your nuggets are fully thawed, the two-hour rule applies and they should be used or thrown away but not refrozen.
If you’ve accidentally left your box of frozen chicken nuggets for a few hours and, depending on the conditions of the room, they are not fully thawed once you discover them then they can be put back in the freezer.
Chicken nuggets that have been cooked from frozen should not be left out at room temperature for more than two hours. Once they are fully cooked, they can either be refrigerated or frozen again.
Can Fast Food Nuggets Be Left Out Longer Than Homemade?
This question can really be answered in two ways. If you practice basic food safety and adhere to the rules that all cooked food should not be left out for longer than two hours at room temperature then the answer is no.
If you are skeptical about the ingredients and preservatives that are used in fast food nuggets then you might not consider that they belong in the same category as fresh, homemade food.
Many people have run experiments on McDonald’s chicken nuggets in which they see no difference in the appearance of the food even after several days of being left out on the counter.
Does this mean they are still safe to eat? Probably not. At the end of the day, even fast food nuggets contain some amount of chicken and are still a viable nesting ground for bacteria.
How Long Do Chicken Nuggets Last In the Fridge?
Cooked chicken nuggets can be kept in the fridge for one to two days. They can also be kept in the freezer for two to three months.
However, you should keep in mind that foods that have been breaded and fried aren’t the best to keep as leftovers.
While they technically won’t be unsafe to eat after 3 or 4 days of being in the fridge, the texture of your chicken nuggets may worsen as more time passes.
What Should You Do If You’ve Left Chicken Nuggets Out Overnight?
If you’ve left a pack of chicken nuggets out overnight, or for more than two hours at room temperature, I suggest you dispose of them to spare yourself the horrors of food-borne illness. It just isn’t worth it.
Now, if your chicken nuggets have been sitting out for an hour or two, they are most likely within a safe zone for consumption. When the clock passes two hours, that’s when you’re starting to take risks.
Obviously, the bacteria don’t suddenly appear after two hours, making the chicken nuggets perfectly safe to eat after an hour and 59 minutes, and risky to eat after 120 minutes. That’s not how it works. The longer the food is left out, the larger the risk.
My recommendation is that you pay attention to anything that’s been left out for 1-2 hours, do your absolute best to store food at safe temperatures, and dispose of anything that has been sitting out for more than two hours.
This means that any perishable food that’s been left out overnight should be disposed of right away. You don’t want to give it to your pets either, as they too can be taken ill.
You could use the leftover pack of chicken nuggets to fertilize. That’s about it. I’m sure there are a bunch of different creative ways to use leftover food – but I’m sure these methods are worth applying when there’s a larger amount of food involved.