I don’t do “batch cooking” per se, but often cook something larger on saturday/sunday so I have leftover, either for Monday/thuesday lunch or for when coming back from sport, keeping food 2-3 in the fridge doesn’t worry me (Obviously, I am not gonna keep a tartare so long in the frige, and don’t even cook meat). Things start to be more worrysome when I still have leftover on Wednesday/Thursday. yesterday night I threw away some beans from Saturday I started to have a doubt.
So my question is basically
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How to optimize food preservation in the fridge (I have a small fridge with a very small freezer compartment, in winter when the temperature doesn’t get above 5 degree I can use my balcony for extra space, but it’s already over)
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Is there a guideline on how long which kind of food can last in a regular fridge ?
Prepared food typically lasts seven days before it can start to go bad in the fridge.
I usually just cook a batch of something on my days off and it lasts me all week till I can cook again. As long as you cool it properly and stick it in the fridge immediately, youre pretty much set.
Define cool properly, please.
Like don’t leave it out at room temperature for hours - bacteria die above 60C and go dormant below 4C, so you need to minimise the amount of time the food spends in the “danger zone”
As the others have said, dont put hot food in the fridge. Refrigerators were built to keep things cool, rather than cooling things off. Putting hot stuff in the fridge causes it to slowly cool and stay at a temperature range where bacteria can thrive. 40F-140F, also known as the “danger zone”, is the temperature you really want to rush through when dealing with food. The longer food stays at those temps, the more bacteria can grow.
If you got something big and heavy, like a casserole dish, put the container in an ice bath to speed the cooling. If its a liquid, like a pot of soup, spreading it thinly cools it quicker and more evenly. Like pouring it out into a casserole dish or high baking pan and putting the dish in an ice bath. The even cooling is the important part.
Alternately, you don’t want to leave stuff out of refrigeration for too long. Cooked rice is a big one, as it can very quickly go bad and get you sick if left out for longer than a couple hours.
The thing to bear in mind is that the bacteria in the food isnt the issue. You can kill bacteria very easily just by cooking/heating food. The problem comes from the waste the bacteria makes, which is what gives you food poisoning. The waste cant be cooked off. When food is allowed to linger in the “danger zone”, the bacteria can easily multiply exponentially, producing more waste. So long as youre careful when cooking and chilling food, it can last a good week in the fridge.
the other reply covered the actual ranges and why it’s important, but in case it’s not obvious:
You should never put hot food in the fridge. Particularly food with a lot of thermal mass like a bowl of soup or thick lasagna. While that would cool the food quicker than just leaving it out, the heat you’re adding is going to heat up the other items in your fridge and risk their safety. And since it will all eventually cool back down it will not be obvious what food was at unsafe temps or how long.
How long food lasts in a fridge will also depend on your climate, cooling speed (as mentioned elsewhere), fridge cleanliness, and how much you use your fridge.
Keeping everything covered with lids/clingfilm and/or everything vegetarian/vegan will also prolong fridge life. Keeping out ethylene (bananas, apples) from your fridge also helps.
I just had a soup batch in a few covered jars stay good for 9 days. In summertime things sometimes go bad in a single day.
The best measure is your own senses, if the food smells or looks bad, it probably is. And even then you can sometimes recook it (wilted vegetables can often be used in soup, stew, or even pie), especially if you catch it early.
Also here’s a neat summary with some other tips and tricks.
Things last much longer than 2-3 days, I’d say 7 days is the average. I’ve eaten leftovers that were over a week old. It really depends on what it is.
We hate wasting food so we always try it before throwing it out (unless it smells/looks bad or is moldy obviously). If it tastes good we eat it without worry.
I tend to put 2 - 3 days worth of stuff in the fridge, then freeze the rest (if it’s something reheatable)
I then eat something else from the freezer for the rest of the week so I don’t eat the same thing for a whole week.
Like other comments have said: Cooked and quickly refridgerated is always good for a week. In addition to that, using portion size containers for the food makes it easier to eat. Especially handy for food you freeze.
I like to cook in batches so I don’t have to I cook too often. I regularly keep cooked food for about 4 days in the fridge, taking a portion every day. I don’t think you need to worry too much even at that time frame if it’s cooked and you kept it in the fridge.
Your governments health authority probably has guidelines or you could search online for answers.
Most websites say 3-4 days for pretty much everything. I push it to five pretty regularly.
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/How-long-will-cooked-food-stay-safe-in-the-refrigerator
Is buying an auxiliary freezer an option? Freezing is the simplest way to preserve. Home canning is also an option for some foods, but it’s really important to do it correctly so that you don’t get a much more dangerous kind of food poisoning (botulism) and requires some expensive gear (pressure cooker + accessories + a lot of cooking fuel/electricity/what ever powers your stove).
To keep fridged foods fresh as long as possible, chill immediately after cooking:
Get ice paddles or use an ice bath (float a smaller metal mixing bowl with food in it in a larger metal mixing bowl or plugged sink full of ice water).
Don’t put your hot cooking pots directly in an ice bath or they will break or warp.
Don’t put a big pot of hot soup in the fridge or it will warm the rest of the fridge for hours, making other things in there not stay fresh as long.
When I batch cook I fill portions of hot food into glass jars with screw lids and keep them in the fridge. (Those glass jars contained yogurt when I bought them, when I need more I buy more yogurt and eat it)
Each jar is 1/2l so a good size for one portion and I only open them when I take them out of the fridge for usage. By filling hot, keeping cool and not opening them (so introducing only few microorganisms) they stay OK for at least a week.
I bought a small chest freezer for extra leftover storage. They’re not super expensive for a small one.
My strategy is to bulk cook on Sunday, eat that until Wednesday, then make an easy slow cooker meal on Thursday so I have fresh food for the rest of the week. I’m iffy about leftovers but this has worked well for me.
Wait what?
You consider food that has been properly refrigerated for 3 days a health risk?
If all ingredients have been properly heated in the cooking process and cooled down quickly (letting it cool down in room temperature is not “quickly” it should be good for a much longer time. Put the food in an airtight container. If it’s cold outside, like below 4°C, you can put it outside to cool. Otherwise, put the container in cold water. Make sure to change the water if it gets luke warm. When the food is luke warm/room tempered you move the container to the fridge (cooling capacity of your fridge determines how warm food you can cook down in the fridge. The cooler food, the better).
If kept below 8°C (I prefer a temperature of 1°C to 4°C in my fridge) it should be good for at least a week. Up to 2-3-4 weeks depending on how poor, courageous and/or stupid you are.
Always: Use your nose and if it smells a bit unusual, not just “off”, you should consider throwing it away. The smell receptors you have have by evolution been calibrated towards smelling “spoiled”. Especially spoiled meats, most likely since the micro organisms and the toxins they produce are among the most dangerous to us compared to what’s in spoiled vegetables. If a piece of meat is really off, you most likely won’t even be able to breath normally within 4-5 inches of it.
Look for color change, tiny tiny dots of something that doesn’t seem to belong in the food. (It doesn’t have to be “hairy”. Bacterias doesn’t create “hairy dots”). If it does have dots or after coloring, then throw it away. If you see “hairy” it’s most likely mold. Not mold actually, but the fruiting body of mold, which is just the tip of the iceberg. What you don’t see if the actual mold which continues det down in the food. So never just cut away the bad parts and eat what looks ok. It’s everywhere, even in parts that looks good.
But if you wouldn’t be able to eat one week old properly refrigerated food, all of our ancestors 100 years ago would have died of food poisoning. I mean “all” as all of them and not just the large amount of people that actually died from botulism, salmonella and all the other food related fun ways to die.
