How long is it safe to keep leftovers?
Leftovers can be one of life’s great pleasures. Not only do they mean you can have a night off cooking, many foods like stews and curries taste way better the next day.
Like any food, care needs to be taken with leftovers to ensure they are safe to eat.
The most important thing to remember is the 2-2-2 rule.
How long can you keep leftovers?
Rice-based leftovers:
Store rice dishes in the fridge and eat them within two days. Rice can contain spores that survive cooking and later grow into bacteria that produce toxins. These toxins can cause food poisoning and aren’t destroyed by reheating—so it’s best to play it safe.
Cooked food eaten cold:
Meals like pasta salads, roast veggie salads, or potato salads should be kept refrigerated and eaten within two days.
Cooked food reheated hot:
For leftovers you plan to reheat, refrigerate promptly and enjoy within four days. Always reheat until they’re steaming hot all the way through.
Green salads:
Eat leafy green salads as soon as possible after making them. If you have any left, mix them into cooked dishes like soups or stir-fries rather than storing them for later. Raw greens can sometimes carry bacteria that survive in the fridge.
Source: MPI, Safe food preparation, cooking, and storage at home
Keep them cold
- Refrigerate or freeze your leftovers as soon as possible or within two hours of cooking. If you are cooling a large amount of food, like a big pot of food, split it between shallow containers so it cools quicker. This also makes it easier to store in the fridge.
- Store leftovers in a covered container.
- If cooked food has been at room temperature for longer than four hours, you are safer not to eat it – although chocolate and wine should still be fine!
- Make sure the temperature of your fridge is between 2-5⁰C.
- If you’re taking leftovers to work or school, make sure they are kept cold. If there isn’t a fridge you can store them in, use a chiller bag or frozen drink to keep them cool.
- When you freeze leftovers they will be at their best quality for at least two months. Label the container so you don’t end up with a freezer full of UFOs (unidentified frozen objects).
- If you have defrosted raw meat and then cooked it, you can refreeze it.
Then make sure they’re hot, hot, hot!
- You need to make sure your leftovers are piping hot (over 75⁰C) when you eat them (or eat them cold, straight from the fridge).
- When reheating food, especially using the microwave, you need to make sure to stir the food frequently, so it heats evenly.
- Don’t reheat your leftovers more than once. Heat leftovers in smaller portions, rather than heating the whole dish at once.
