A theoretical "can I eat it?" question

July 4, 2019 2:29 PM

Can I put raw chicken and raw beef in the same bag in the fridge?

I'm making some chicken skewers and some beef skewers tonight, so the chicken and beef are currently marinating in Italian dressing in separate bags in the fridge. Out of habit I always keep different meats separate until it's time to cook because mixing them beforehand just seems weird and potentially dangerous to me, but is there actually any danger to mixing different kinds of meat before cooking so long as I follow safe handling with the mix? For example would it have been okay to throw the chicken and beef cubes in the same bag with Italian dressing?

posted by Tehhund to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Totally ok as long as you follow safe handling generally (eg limiting the time out of the fridge, etc). Nothing bad happens if two types of meat touch.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:33 PM on July 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

Sausages can have more than one type of meat and sit around refrigerated for ages.
posted by deadwax at 2:38 PM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

You’d have to look up the temperatures of what beef cooks at but I wouldn’t want chicken juice in my rare beef skewer cubes
posted by raccoon409 at 2:41 PM on July 4, 2019 [15 favorites]

Are you mixing the meats to marinade, then separating them back out again for cooking? I'd be concerned that cooking the mixed chicken and beef at the same temperature for the same amount of time would either result in underdone chicken or dried-out beef.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 2:46 PM on July 4, 2019

The risk of cross-contamination is lowered because marinades -- and thus the juices they are contaminated with -- don't really penetrate very deeply into meat. The outside bits of your beef kebabs are probably getting cooked to chicken-safe temperatures anyway. However, skewers introduce a vector into the center of the meat cubes so I would still be fairly cautious.

I wouldn't worry about putting all the kebabs on the same platter to carry out to the BBQ once you take them *out* of the marinade, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:03 PM on July 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Hm, that's an interesting question. I've heard that the risk of salmonella is one reason that you wouldn't do it, but the reason that I don't do it is that a)I don't generally use the same marinade for my beef and chicken and b) I definitely am not cooking these meats on the same skewer so it just seems easier to have them separated.

I guess that's not really an answer, since I don't actually know for a fact if there's food safety issues at play, but my vote is to continue with separate baggies.
posted by sm1tten at 3:23 PM on July 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

The fundamental issue is that the beef, cooked nicely, comes to an internal temperature that is too low to eliminate any bacteria that have been transferred from the chicken during marination, however likely that is.

If you don't mind your beef well-cooked, you could check the centre of the beef cubes with a digital probe thermometer to make sure they're above the safe temperature for chicken: 165°F (74°C) if it's white meat.
posted by pipeski at 3:35 PM on July 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Marinate together or otherwise store together: fine.

Cook together: also mostly fine but best avoided for culinary reasons of cooking each skewer and meat to its specific most delicious outcome.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:58 PM on July 4, 2019

I mean, you could do it, but why would you? Presumably you will be preparing the two different types of meat on two different sets of skewers, so if it's all just one sticky bolus of flesh, darkened by marinade, it's going to be a hassle to separate them out. And even if you were doing a single skewer beef-chicken-beef-chicken-etc., you'd still have to separate them out, because what if it went beef-beef-chicken-beef? That would be ridiculous.

In short, yes you can marinade both together, but my perspective is you're just making more work for yourself, and also it seems gross.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:23 PM on July 4, 2019

Not OK to marinate beef and chicken together for kebabs. Chicken has to cook all the way and beef does not.
posted by Oyéah at 10:48 PM on July 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Great, thanks. It sounds like there's no specific rule that says "do not mix uncooked meats", but there are good reasons why I might not want to do it (e.g., different cooking times). And if I'm going to put them on different skewers (which was the plan) then there's not really a point to mixing them in the first place.
posted by Tehhund at 6:16 AM on July 10, 2019