How To Defrost Mince

Hi there. I am Matt from the Underground Cookery School, and today, I am going to do a video cookery lesson for you. I wanted to talk to you about the best ways of defrosting or thawing out mince.

Now as you can see, that is a frozen solid and the best way I think is not by putting it in a microwave oven, which you can do, but I think there always is a danger of you going to end up cooking a part, which could end up creating a problem as far the bacteria is concerned. So for me, the two safest ways of thawing or defrosting mince as follows. The best way I think is defrosting in the fridge.

Have a tray and lay the tray with the mince in the bottom shelf, like so. If you do it that way the tray is going to ensure that when it defrosts and as a result excess liquid comes off the meat. It's not going to drip over anything else in the fridge, whether it is the danger of cross contamination, also if you put it in the bottom shelf there, nowhere else for it to go.

So, I am going to leave in there for about eight hours. We have got about two pounds of mince there and I generally find that four to five hours per pound is a good formula. Great, let's have a look.

That's been in there now, as I said, for about eight hours. As you can see, the mince is completely thawed out or defrosted. There is quite a lot of excess liquid in there.

So, having that on the bottom shelf and keeping it on a tray ensures that those juices aren't going to drip anywhere which would create a problem from a bacteria point of view. The only other way that I would recommend thawing or defrosting mince is by submerging it in very cold water and changing the water regularly. Now, the thawing/defrosting time to, I think, is going to be probably a third possibly a half of the time to I suggested in the fridge providing you keep changing the water maybe two or three times during the process, you should be fine.

I think I would normally recommend something like forty five minutes per pound. So may be an hour and a half submerged in water also do the trick, for something like that, provided that you change the water at least two or three times during the process. For me, those are the only two ways of thawing and defrosting mince. .