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Laura Beth Drilling/Demand Media

Chicken legs make for a fast, nutritious and tasty meal. They frequently come up frozen, and defrosting the chicken legs can take a long fourth dimension. One fashion to save time is by safely cooking the legs by baking them in the oven from frozen. This saves y'all the problem of defrosting the legs, although there are some important points to keep in mind, namely the proper cooking temperature and seasoning the meat well.

Cooking Frozen Craven

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Laura Beth Drilling/Demand Media

Chicken left out to thaw is an ideal breeding footing for bad bacteria. One way to mitigate this risk is to melt the chicken legs from frozen because the meat cooks while information technology is thawing. Cooking chicken legs from frozen is especially convenient if you lot simply demand to cook a small amount such as one or two legs. Thawing the chicken legs prior to cooking them may often be more than trouble than it is worth. Cooking craven legs from frozen does, all the same, take longer. To practise so requires at least 50 percent more than cooking time if non more.

Seasoning Frozen Chicken

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Laura Beth Drilling/Demand Media

Craven legs should not exist coated or seasoned in a frozen land. If craven legs are seasoned while they are frozen, the meat will not blot the flavors and aromatics that you are trying to add together to the dish. Season or coat the legs with a marinade or dry out rub prior to freezing the meat. If y'all are pressed for time and did not flavor the legs before freezing, partially defrost the legs by heating them in the microwave for i to 2 minutes on the defrost setting. This thaws the exterior of the leg while keeping the interior frozen. Coat the legs with seasonings -- the legs may not coat as evenly -- and immediately broil them.

Bake Chicken Legs

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Laura Beth Drilling/Demand Media

Frozen chicken legs can be broiled as is or with other liquids and seasonings. This second option is specially useful if you lot are not able to flavour the legs before freezing. Rut the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the frozen legs in an oven-safe pan forth with any liquid, seasonings or root vegetables. A skillful alloy is olive oil, crushed garlic, oregano, marjoram and lemon juice. Add irish potato and carrot pieces as you like. For less fuss, you may employ a mix of white vino, Dijon mustard and minced garlic. Place the pan with the craven in a center rack and cook for 50 to 60 minutes. Skin-on chicken legs self-baste so leave the legs untouched until they are cooked.

Checking for Complete Cooking

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Laura Beth Drilling/Need Media

Utilize an instant-read thermometer to test chicken for doneness equally only a thermometer ensures an accurate reading. Craven is safe to eat when the internal temperature is 165 degrees Fahrenheit at the thickest part of the leg; exercise non touch the bone when taking a reading. When cooked, chicken turns white and firms upwardly and the juices run clear. However, in young chickens, the meat near the bone may stay pink when fully cooked. The veins in the legs also sometimes leak dark-colored claret, even though the meat is fully cooked.

References

Author Bio

David Grimes has worked professionally as a chef since 2002, in settings equally wide-ranging as a corporate caterer and as a sous chef in a Michelin-starred French restaurant. He has been writing about food since 2009 and published in "Time Out New York" and "Food and Wine" magazine.

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