Food Safety Experts Reveal How Long Raw Chicken Actually Lasts in Your Fridge

It's midweek; you've had a long day, and all you want to do is make an easy, breezy dinner that is no fuss at all. So, you crack open the fridge and see that pack of chicken you bought the other day at the grocery store staring back. Or wait. Did you buy that last week? How old is that thing? And hang on, how long does chicken last in the fridge anyway?

Before you make dinner with that chicken tonight, here's what the experts say about poultry safety.

"Use your fresh chicken within 1-2 days if storing in the refrigerator," Urvi Shah, Ph.D., and food safety expert, said with Good Housekeeping. Like beef, that's your window to use it.

Raw chicken can be contaminated with Campylobacter, Salmonella, or Clostridium perfringens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And the worst part is, you can't see any of it. The CDC estimates that about 1 million people in the United States get sick from eating contaminated poultry every year. And, perhaps a bit more shockingly, the agency also estimates that 1 in 25 packages of chicken at the grocery store is contaminated with Salmonella. That's why handling and storage aren't just good habits; they may save you from a world of food poisoning pain.

Color isn't always a reliable indicator with chicken. Jorge Thomas, chef and founder of Swaledale Butchers, explained that vacuum-packed chicken "can look and smell a bit odd at first without there being anything wrong with it," and that the color can look darker when first opened, then pink up again once it's exposed to air. A slight smell can also be normal and should clear within a few minutes.

"What matters more is whether the smell lingers, whether the chicken feels slimy, or still looks dull and wrong after it has had a bit of air," Thomas added. If any of those are true, toss it.

If you're not cooking the chicken within a day or two, freeze it while it's still fresh. That way, you really can enjoy it down the line.

"Freezing is absolutely a good idea if you're not going to use it in time," Thomas says. Shah backed him up, adding that there is no harm in freezing your chicken "indefinitely." She added, "The quality may degrade when kept in the freezer for too long (11-12 months max)," but if you properly package your chicken with airtight heavy-duty foil or plastic wrap, it will "prevent any gray-brown spots (freezer burn) during long-term storage in the freezer."