KITCHEN TIP: How to Thaw Meat Quickly!

Pressed for time in the evening? Use one of these tricks to thaw your meat quickly:

Cold Water Method
For small cuts of meat (steaks, chicken breasts, ground beef, pork loin, etc.), remove the meat from its packaging, and place it in a plastic zipper bag. Then, submerge the bag in a bowl of cold water. Change the water every 30 minutes, until the meat has thawed. A pound of meat will often thaw in 30 minutes using this method, but shouldn't take more than an hour.
To speed the process along, separate individual pieces/cuts of meat as soon as they've thawed out enough to pull them apart. If you're thawing more than a pound of meat, you can also hurry things along by dividing the meat up between multiple bowls of cold water.

Microwave Method
Use the defrost setting on your microwave (50% power) to thaw your meat in a matter of minutes. Most microwaves allow you to enter how many pounds of meat you need to thaw, and will automatically calculate the recommended defrost time for you. Just keep a close eye on things because defrosting can quickly cross over to cooking.

Cooking Without Thawing
If you have a whole turkey, chicken, ham or roast that you need to get on the table post haste, your best bet is to cook it from a frozen state. It's perfectly safe to cook frozen meat, but it will take about 50% longer. That's a pretty good deal when you consider that it typically takes two days to thaw out a 10-pound bird in the fridge! 

Just use a meat thermometer to determine when the meat has reached a safe internal temperature. Here's what you're aiming for:
Chicken- 165°
Turkey- 165°
Beef, Pork, Veal, Lamb- 145°
Ground Meat- 160°
Cooked Ham- 140°
Uncooked Ham- 165°

We have a pressure cooker and have used that many times in a pinch when we have had frozen pre-cooked ground beef or pre-cut beef - juicy and tender and cooks fast!

*All recommendations are based on current USDA guidelines.