Does A Defrosting Tray Work. Consequently, do defrosting trays really work? The same reason that your food thaws slowly without a defrosting tray limits how quickly it will thaw with one, and that is because air is a poor conductor of heat.

If you put a frozen slab of meat on it, the tray conducts the room temperature air onto the frozen food and the colder temps from the surface of the meat migrate into the tray. It's a flat tray made of a metal (like aluminum) that's a good heat conductor, which means it heats up and cools down quickly. All defrosting trays are made of either aluminum or copper, which are relatively soft metals.