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Refrigerate or Freeze. When you pick up chicken from the poultry section at your grocery store, it will last for one to two days raw in the refrigerator and three to four days when cooked. After this time, you should consider throwing it away. If you cannot cook or eat the chicken in this period, freeze it. A whole, raw chicken remains safe to eat for up to one year in the freezer, and raw chicken cutlets remain safe for nine months. If you want to freeze cooked leftovers, these can last in the freezer for two to six months.
How long cooked chicken will keep is different than for uncooked chicken. As a general rule, raw chicken is very perishable and will keep in the refrigerator for only 1 to 2 days. When the question is how long does cooked chicken keep, the general rule is 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has a lot of information on its website to help insure food safety and most general all-purpose cookbooks include tips on buying, storing, and cooking chicken and poultry.