Should You Wait To Cool Leftovers Before Storing in the Refrigerator?
Yes, but it’s critical to cool and store your food properly. Here’s how.
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Right after cooking a piping hot meal, like chili or lasagna, should you quickly close a lid on it and place in the refrigerator? The short answer is no. Here’s why, and how to store leftovers properly.
How Long Can You Leave Cooked Food Out?
After a meal, leftovers can be stored depending on how long you’ve left the food out. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that food should not be left out at room temperature for more than two hours. However, if the temperature is 90 degrees Fahrenheit or above, then food should not be kept out for more than an hour. This is because between temperatures of 41 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, pathogenic bacteria tend to grow and thrive within one or two hours to levels that can potentially make you sick.
How to Safely Cool Leftovers
Once you’re ready to store leftovers, they need to be cooled to around 70 degrees Fahrenheit (which is typically room temperature) for the refrigerator to be able to handle them safely. Placing piping hot food in the fridge can come with several consequences. It can heat up surrounding food that is being stored in the refrigerator, which is hazardous from a food safety perspective. This can also make the refrigerator work harder to regulate the temperature, which can increase your electricity bill and put more wear and tear on your appliance. Plus, putting a too-hot, locked-tight storage container, especially glass, straight into a cold fridge could lead to the container breaking.
If your leftovers are hot (above 70 degrees), there are several things you can do to help decrease the temperature of the food quickly:
- Cut bigger pieces of meat, like roasts or whole chicken, into smaller pieces.
- Pour larger pots of soup, chili, sauces or stews into smaller containers. Dishes like lasagna can be cut into smaller pieces and placed in several smaller containers.
- Do not over pack thicker foods like chili and thin liquids like soups when you store them in their containers. Leave two inches at the top for thicker foods like chili and stew, and three inches for thinner liquids like soups and broths.
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How to Store Leftovers Safely
Once you cool your food properly, close containers tightly and label them with the food (how often do you forget what’s in your fridge?) and date. Cooked leftovers can be stored for up to four days in the refrigerator.
And what about reheating leftovers? You can reheat leftovers safely if you have handled the food properly throughout the entire cooking process. This means that you’ve cooked the food to proper temperatures, served it correctly and reheated and stored it properly, too.
Reheating food can be done in the microwave, stovetop or oven – as long as it reaches a minimum internal cooking temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, then you are good to go.
*This article was written and/or reviewed by an independent registered dietitian nutritionist.
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