Why You Shouldn't Wait To Shred Leftover Rotisserie Chicken

A fresh, hot rotisserie chicken is a weekday dinner workhorse, as suitable for enchiladas as it is for a Caesar salad. Naturally you picked up the heaviest chicken in the bunch, so you got the most meat possible, but if you habitually bring it home, use part of it, and then stash the rest in the fridge to shred later (the "future me's problem" method), you're doing yourself — namely your fingers — a major disservice. The reason you shouldn't wait to shred leftover rotisserie chicken is simply because the meat shreds much more easily when it's still slightly warm.

Without getting scientific on you, when the chicken is cold, like refrigerator-cold, the fats in the meat have gone solid, making the flesh tougher to pull apart. But if you shred your rotisserie chicken while it's room temperature, those fats are still liquid, meaning the meat is tender and juicy and tends to just fall off the bone. We don't know about you, but we'd prefer to work smarter, not harder, in the kitchen. So you should just shred the whole chicken at once, or pick off what you need, and if you have a few minutes while the pot for dinner is simmering on your stove, you can shred the rest for storage then.

A lot of "hacks" that float around the Internet are actually duds, but the one where you debone a rotisserie chicken in a plastic bag by massaging it until the meat falls off and breaks apart? That one is pretty good, and it will definitely work with just part of the meat still on the bone. Again, though, it should be done while the chicken is at least room temperature, especially since the plastic bag inhibits you from really getting your fingers into the nooks and crannies of the skeleton. You could also peel off big chunks of the chicken and place them in your stand mixer (or take a hand mixer to it, either way); that's another method where you won't get your hands dirty shredding the meat.

It is important to note that, per the USDA, you shouldn't leave your rotisserie chicken out on the counter for longer than two hours, as it can reach an unsafe temperature where bacterial growth is exponential. So after an initial half- or one-hour max cooldown time to get the chicken to room temperature, shred it, and place it in an airtight container (plastic, glass, or even a zip-top bag) before putting it in your fridge, where it will keep for up to four days — and no more trying to pull apart tough, resisting meat with your fingers.