It's about 8PM now, and I'd like to prepare dinner before 10. I have some chicken in the fridge but forgot to take it out to thaw.

Is there anything I can do to thaw it out quickly without compromising the quality of the meat and safety? Perhaps putting it in some warm water?

I usually just leave it on the counter in its packaging for 2+ hours until it's thawed.

woops too late now, but the only thing i can say is try to separate them as much as possible. usually, i pack meat flatly in a plastic bag then fold it so it increases the surface area. then i can just pop it into a bowl of warm water

Standard way of safely doing it would be to place it in a large, deep vessel with running cold water. The convection should take care of the thawing quickly. A trickle is all it takes.

That's the method that is acceptable to the health inspector in these parts, anyway, and the method I use at home. I thawed a pound and a half of chicken breasts today in less than an hour using this method.

In Wyoming.

I'm going to assume you're just trying to piss me off cuz I'm the new mod.

If you're not, though, that method is pretty normal in MOST kitchens, so don't be daft.

yeah try warm water

and maybe a micro-wave, if you have one??

I used the cold-water method. It only took about 30 minutes, so...awesome.

I googled it and saw that people said warm water would spoil the meat. If you're going to cook it immediately afterwards, how could it spoil?

It probably couldn't, however, I'd still prefer the cold water method, because you never know if something is going to come up and you'll have to suddenly cancel your immediate plans for cooking. You're left with warm meat covered in water, which would provide a much better place for the various bacteria and other baddies to make a home.

I've also heard that using cold water doesn't take any longer than warm water due to convection working regardless of whether it's warm or cold. However, I'm not a professor of thermodynamics, so I could certainly be wrong.

I'm sure, though, that in most applications, warm water thawing presents little more risk so long as the meat is going from water to paper towel for drying to your cooking method.

Now that I think about it, they probably say not to use warm water because it causes the outside of the chicken to be significantly warmer than the rest of it.

Never thought of that, but I'll bet you're right. That would result in uneven cooking, and there are entirely too many applications when that would be bad, chicken being one that immediately comes to mind.