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I heated (in a 900W microwave) some pre-cooked, shop-bought barbecue sauce-covered chicken wings. Unfortunately, instead of doing so for the required two minutes and thirty seconds, I only heated them for 1 min 40 secs. When we started to eat them a few minutes later, they were noticeably lukewarm. We didn't eat much at all, but I am worried about food poisoning. Are we likely to fall ill?

Deko Revinio
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FOODIE DUDIE
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2 Answers2

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It's perfectly safe. If it's pre-cooked then it is safe to eat cold, hot or lukewarm. It's true that room temperature is the happy range for the microbes that cause foodborne illness to grow, but that takes at least a couple of hours to develop. Just nuke it again until it's hot.

GdD
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Since the chicken was precooked, the likelihood of illness is very slim even if you consumed it cold.

KnotWright
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  • I read somewhere that unless pre-cooked meat is reheated to 75 degrees, it can be dangerous to eat. I am not at all sure that it had reached that temperature, hence my concern. I missed the advised heating time by 50 seconds, which is quite a lot when it apparently needed 150 seconds. – FOODIE DUDIE Jan 31 '23 at 21:47
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    @FOODIEDUDIE I read somewhere that you shouldn’t believe everything you read somewhere. – Sneftel Jan 31 '23 at 22:12
  • Yeah that's not true. In general you shouldn't be reliant on reheating in order to prevent foodborne illness. It's not going to get rid of any toxins produced by pathogens anyway, so you can still get sick if the meat hadn't been properly cooked to begin with. Also, think about it: if you eat meat then you have definitely eaten cold pre-cooked meat before, say in a salad or on a sandwich. What's important is that it was cooked (and then stored) well to begin with, not any reheating. – Ruben van Bergen Feb 07 '23 at 11:58