How to thaw raw meat quickly?

[susan8020]

Thawing slowly in the fridge or cold water doesn't work in our chaotic schedule. We need to thaw it quickly for immediate use. Microwave or hot water have obvious problems. Any workarounds, or other approaches?

Comments

[17catherines]

I hate to say this, but at my food safety course we were warned *stringently* against defrosting by anything other than the fridge or microwave methods. The cold water method can be very dangerous, as it holds the defrosting meats at unsafe temperatures.

Your best bet is to freeze things as flat as possible - maximise their surface area so that they defrost quickly and evenly.

Actually, I've just noticed that windtear is right on the ball with all this stuff, and I'm not being too helpful, but I did want to mention the food safety thing, because I didn't know about it previous to that course.