Lean Cuisine: TikTok Video Showing Users Sautéing Chicken In NyQuil Takes Getting Fried To A New Level

If you enjoy watching cooking videos on TikTok, make sure you scroll past the latest viral TikTok trend, #sleepychicken. The sautéed chicken recipe has millions of users grilling seasoned NyQuil chicken in their kitchens.

According to USA Today, on Tuesday, the FDA updated its “social media challenge” statement advising people to avoid cooking chicken in NyQuil. And also explained the physical danger of cooking with the liquid cough medicine.

This statement refers to a NyQuil chicken TikTok video posted almost a year ago. In the video, a user is showcasing a recipe for frying two chicken breasts mixed in with the cold and flu medicine for added flavor. The video has since been removed by TikTok.

“The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing — and it is,” the FDA wrote on its website.

“But it could also be very unsafe. Boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways. Even if you don’t eat the chicken, inhaling the medication’s vapors while cooking could cause high levels of the drugs to enter your body. It could also hurt your lungs,” it read.

The FDA added that nighttime medicine could not only damage the lungs but, a person can mistakenly take too much medicine leading to hospitalization.

“Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”

According to NBC News, Procter & Gamble, the maker of NyQuil, did not respond for comment.

If you’re interested in seeing what the commotion is all about it may be hard to locate — the hashtag “#nyquilchicken” is banned on TikTok, and searching for it leads to multiple pop-up warnings that “some online challenges can be dangerous, disturbing, or even fabricated.”

The FDA also promotes the importance of parents keeping over-the-counter drugs away from children and discussing the impacts of social media trends involving medications.

“Sit down with your children and discuss the dangers of misusing drugs and how social media trends can lead to real, sometimes irreversible, damage. Remind your children that overdoses can occur with OTC drugs as well as with prescription drugs,” the FDA site read.

Earlier in 2020, a TikTok trend involving Benadryl as a hallucinogen caused the FDA to step in as well.