by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

Maybe you made a big pot of soup that you couldn’t finish in one day or even two. Or perhaps you went out to eat and, knowing that you couldn’t consume everything that you ordered, brought some food home with you. Leftovers are a part of life for many people. I love having leftovers that I can reheat and eat for lunch or dinner.

While leftovers are great, no one wants to get sick from eating spoiled food. Just how long can leftovers be safely stored?

According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA (See: www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety), leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. One helpful trick is to write a date 3-4 days from the time the food was first refrigerated on a sticker or a piece of masking tape on the container. That way, you’ll know that this is the last date to eat the food. If you prefer, you can set up an alert on your phone to remind you to either eat the food or discard it. If you don’t think you’ll eat all of the food within 3-4 days, you can freeze all or part of it. According to the FSIS, properly packaged leftovers can be stored in the freezer for 3-4 months without any loss in quality. After that, the food is still safe to eat but may be dried out and not as flavorful. I keep a list of frozen leftovers on my refrigerator to remind me that they are there waiting to be used for an easy meal.

For the sake of food safety, leftovers should be refrigerated within two hours of being cooked. If it’s a hot day and the food has been sitting out in a place where the air temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the food should be refrigerated within an hour of being cooked.

Cold perishable foods such as hummus or tofu salad should be discarded if they’ve been left out of the refrigerator for more than two hours at room temperature or for more than one hour if the air temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.