If we are not careful with our meals, particularly chicken, anyone can get food poisoning. It is unpleasant to spend time preparing a whole chicken to discover that the raw meat has spoiled. It implies that much food will be wasted.
Fortunately, there are several ways to tell if a chicken is terrible or if your chicken is still safe to consume. These include examining the chicken for signs of aging, smelling out strange odors, touching the meat for slime, and recalling the date of purchase.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, forty-eight million individuals become ill from a foodborne disease every year. There are a few techniques to determine whether the chicken is terrible and how to guarantee to eat high-quality chicken.
1. Smell
An unpleasant scent is a telling symptom of rotten chicken. Fresh, raw chicken will either have no fragrance or very little.

Discard your chicken if it smells strongly of anything, like rotting eggs or something bitter or sulfurous.
To assess if the chicken is safe to consume, you should always rely on something other than the scent. Only some people will detect a difference in chicken aroma since each person’s sense of smell is unique. So keep an eye out for different indicators of rotting.
2. Expiration Date
Check somewhere at the “best by” date printed on the container. It’s preferable to throw away the chicken than risk becoming sick if you’re much past that date because it’s probably not safe for consumption.
The “best by” date is only one of the timelines you should know. Generally speaking, raw chicken should be stored in the refrigerator for up to two days.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the USDA both state that a chicken’s expiry date changes depending on whether it has been cooked.
3. Raw Chicken
Check the “use by” date on the packaging before you leave the grocery store.

According to the USDA, this date isn’t an expiry date; instead, it marks the point at which the chicken starts to lose its “peak quality.”
Therefore, the chicken may be used up to two days later. Pay attention to additional sensory cues if the chicken has gone wrong after two days.
4. Cooked Chicken
Place the chicken in the refrigerator to chill down as rapidly as possible when it is finished cooking. Name and date your storing box to determine when the chicken expires.

Once cooked, consume it three to four days later; otherwise, throw.
5. Texture
The texture of the raw, fresh chicken is shiny and a little soft. It must not have a slimy, tacky, or sticky texture. After handling raw chicken, the chicken will go rotten if your hands come away with a sticky residue.

Compared to raw chicken, cooked chicken is firmer and drier. It’s no longer safe to consume if you detect textural differences, such as a rise in softness, sliminess, stickiness, or residue.
6. Appearance & Color

There are a few essential variations between raw and cooked chicken in terms of look and color.
Raw Chicken
- Before cooking chicken, inspecting it for rotting symptoms is essential.
- White fat bits and a light pink should be present in raw chicken. You must throw away the chicken if the meat is grey, green, or yellow.
- These are signs of deterioration. But even minor color changes in the chicken’s meat are OK.
- For instance, you could notice a slight fading or darkening of the pink flesh, typical when oxymyoglobin, a red protein, and pigment, changes into metmyoglobin when oxygen interacts.
- This may be a sign that the chicken could be fresh, but it’s not typically a sign that it has degraded. A slight color change is typical as the chicken is appropriately kept in the fridge or freezer.
- Lastly, dispose of the chicken if there are any apparent symptoms of deterioration, such as mold development.
- The entire piece or batch of chicken should be thrown out since, unlike hard cheese, you can’t merely snip off a little bit where mold growth has developed.
Cooked chicken
- Cooked chicken shouldn’t have pink meat; it must be white. The heart of the undercooked chicken will be pink. Chicken remains should be stored in the refrigerator for over three days in a container at 40ยฐF (4ยฐC).
- Once preparing or eating, make sure to immediately place the chicken in the refrigerator since it can deteriorate if left out in the “danger zone” of 40ยฐF (4ยฐC) to 140ยฐF (60ยฐC) for an extended time. In this temperature range, germs multiply rapidly, and the chance of contracting a foodborne disease rises.

- When the chicken is placed in the refrigerator and when you want to consume it, look for any apparent symptoms of mold development or color changes and toss the chicken away.
- If the chicken has any spices or dressings, detecting mold or color changes may be challenging. For this reason, you must consume the chicken within three days of preparing it. Use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature of the chicken as it is being reheated to ensure it reaches a minimum of 165ยฐF (74ยฐC).
7. Strange Growth
Examine your chicken for any bacterial signs. When you spot mold, the food has now degraded. You might still be exposed to illness even if you only remove the mold-infected pieces. Mold indicates that something has gone wrong, and it needs to smell a little.