How Long Do You Keep Your Cooked Meat For? page

[Primal Toad]

I enjoy cooking meat and storing it in the fridge to use for salads in the days ahead. I currently keep meat for up to only 3 days but believe I can keep it for much longer - maybe up to a week?

How long will cooked meat last? Including poultry, fish, etc.

I am going to start planning my meals for the week and its a lot easier to cook a few meals at one time.

[Chaohinon]

1-2 days. Even if it's technically still good after that, the ick factor gets to me.

[spughy]

A week for cooked red meat or poultry, 2-3 days for cooked fish & shellfish. This is what my FoodSafe course said... occasionally I have fed my child pasta sauce (ground beef & tomato) that had for sure been in the fridge at least 10 days and she is still alive, so I'm pretty sure the FoodSafe guidelines are erring on the side of caution. Mostly I go by sniff-tests.

[eelnus]

Good question I would like to know too. I only keep mine til the next day.
Along the same line, how long can you keep non cooked meat? Like ground beef. If I open my vaccum packed ground beef today and cooked only half, how long before I need to cook the rest? Once I cooked it 3 days later, and it tasted sort of vinegery. Is that bad?

[Zed]

I enjoy cooking meat and storing it in the fridge to use for salads in the days ahead. I currently keep meat for up to only 3 days but believe I can keep it for much longer - maybe up to a week?

How long will cooked meat last? Including poultry, fish, etc.

I am going to start planning my meals for the week and its a lot easier to cook a few meals at one time.

I keep them for 3-4 days. However, when I was young I remembered my parents and I used to heat up leftovers that was in the fringe for about a week. I am still alive! LOL!

If the the food is kept in a airtight container, and in the coldest part of the fringe, then it should fine, even if it has been in the fringe for a week or so. Just make sure to "check" it before heating it up (make sure no bacteria/mold has grown on the food). The best test is your sight and smell!

[Primal Toad]

Thanks for the quick responses. About a week seems logical to me. My mother swears on 3 days but she also swears on eating grains and avoiding all pig products because of what the bible says about them... I love her but a lot of times I just can't listen to her.

I am going to shoot for up to a week and see how it goes. But if anyone else has a response then that would be great!

Eelnus - Great question and I am not sure what the answer is... If you opened up a vacuum sealed package of ground beef then I would personally wait no more than a day or 2. Cook it all at one time if you can.

[jammies]

I got a bad case of food poisoning once from 5 day old roasted chicken in my fridge. My cut-off is about 4 days now

Overall, I think that after three days cooked meat takes on a funny taste and I just don't enjoy it any more.

[mirow]

Thanks for the quick responses. About a week seems logical to me. My mother swears on 3 days but she also swears on eating grains and avoiding all pig products because of what the bible says about them... I love her but a lot of times I just can't listen to her.

I am going to shoot for up to a week and see how it goes. But if anyone else has a response then that would be great!

Eelnus - Great question and I am not sure what the answer is... If you opened up a vacuum sealed package of ground beef then I would personally wait no more than a day or 2. Cook it all at one time if you can.

Is there a reason you wouldn't divide into portions and just freeze them and take out as you need them? Either the raw or the cooked. I always freeze things in single serve packets, especially cooked sauces, leftover chile, raw ground meat in hamburger size portions. If I want to make meatloaf I just take out a few.

[DaisyEater]

I do ok cooking a bunch of chicken on Sunday night and using it on my salads at lunch until Friday. I make sure it's tightly sealed and I reheat thoroughly. I don't think I'd want to push it longer than that. It's never smelled funny or made me ill.

[Rivvin]

Anything but fish has a 3 day limit for me unless I've frozen it. I don't care if its a steak, a bowl of soup, or whatever.. 3 days is my max.

Why? I had food poisoning that ended with me losing over 18 lbs over 4 days of water weight and a broken nose from constantly passing out while trying to get to the bathroom... and unfortunately face planting on the tile floor when one caught me at a bad time.

I would like to go the rest of my life without ever going through that again.