bbq: My mom was planning on marinating some chicken in bbq sauce and then cooking it or putting it in the oven. Unfortunately she forgot about the chicken and its been a couple of days since its been in the fridge. So i wanted to know what is the maximum time the chicken can be in there while still being edible and safe (because of cross contamination and all the junk about bacteria growth and such) ? Thanks.|||cross contamination is when you get one thing mixed with another that should never be together. Like drinking from the milk jug. Or double dipping in the chip dip. Thats cross contamination. If your marinade from the chicken dripped onto a bowl of lettuce, THAT is cross contamination. You do not have to worry about that while marinating the chicken.Several days is fine as the salt in the marinade acts as a preservative, just like it does in the BBQ sauce. And it inhibits bacteria growth, as does the coldness of the fridge. LIke the other guy said about the wings, 3-4 days is okay. Just cook them well done and do not use the marinade for any other meats. And no it does not violate some kind of health code. What code would that be, exactly? Chicken doesn't spoil THAT fast and keeping it cold in the fridge and marinating in a sauce that involves vinegar and salt,(BBQ sauce has one or both) both of which are recognized food preservatives doesn't make it spoil faster. Not cooking the chicken to a proper temperature violates a health code. Marinating it a few days does not. EDIT: Anyone wanting to see my employment record or talk to any of my current or prior employers, feel free to e-mail me. It is not against any violation to store marinating meat in a walk in cooler. Where the hell else would a eating establishment store it? There is no law stating how long meat can remain in a marinade. You do not need to toss meat if it is AFTER the SELL by date, only after the USE by date. there is a huge difference.|||If it's only been a couple of days, she should be able to marinade it another 24 hours safely. Properly stored, most chicken can be safely kept for 3-4 days after purchase. There's usually info on the label that says "Sell By".. with a date, to give consumers an idea of how long one can safely eat the product.|||As far as spoilage goes, just so long as you cook it by the sell date on the package, you should be OK. Also make sure you cook it to internal temperature of 160 and you should be OK. Now... about overmarinating - if the marinade has too much acid like vinegar or too much salt, your meat will start to cure if marinated too long. Overnight would be a maximum I would use. Also... don't apply your BBQ sauce until the last 10-15 minutes or so of cooking or the sugars in the sauce will burn. Bill Barbecue Recipes - http://www.bbq-book.com|||You can marinate up to a day. A couple of days, you *probably* won't get sick (I've had it happen before and I never got sick) but in the future, if it's been marinating in the fridge for more than a day you should probably throw it out and just marinate new chicken for a few hours.|||Alot of Restaurants Marinate there foods well over 12 hours you have one week from the time that it first went in the refrigerator. Thats the rule we have for any food. Edit: And to Amanda S who thinks she knows everything she is wrong I had a Sanitation Class and we went over this so many times and even on the test it was on the test 2 or three times so we got it.|||3 to 4 days is fine...you can always google The Foodnetwork and ask them this same question...Personaly myself i am a line cook at a sports bar...and we do marinate chicken wings for wing night..when we have left overs we never throw them out at the end of the night...we let it sit in our walk in for at least 3 to 4 days in case we get a side order that calls for them...3 or 4 days is good enough|||As a professional cook, I can say a few days is fine. The BBQ sauce is a high sugar, acidic environment and bacteria does not grow well in that esp in a fridge. Besides that, you will be cooking it to temp. I would go five days.|||It really depends upon when the sell by date is. I never, ever go past that date. I've had food-poisoning 3 times. It's not worth the risk.|||24 hours is even pushing it. i dont marinate over 10 hrs|||I wouldn't eat it, honestly. 12 hours is about what you're aiming for. A couple days is really stretching it. To the person who said they do that in a bar, that's horrifying. "we let it sit in our walk in for at least 3 to 4 days in case we get a side order that calls for them" Doesn't that violate some kind of health code?? Edit: Please ignore these people pretending to be chefs to help their point, especially the one who thinks the extremely low concentration of salt in bbq sauce counts as a preservative. Salt is only a preservative in the case of curing when the solution contains an extremely high salt concentration, like with commercial brine. Regardless, you can't let chicken marinate for 3 to 4 days, even in the fridge. Even if it doesn't kill you, it's not sanitary, and it'll ruin the taste anyway as the chicken degrades. @anna, yeah I'm sure they put the same question on the test 2 or 3 times. That makes total sense.