How long does meal-prepped food last in the refrigerator?
Any cooked, meal-prepped food should be refrigerated as quickly as possible and consumed within several days. If you won't eat it that quickly, freeze it. Store larger batches in shallow containers to help them cool faster and keep your fridge colder, and heat each individual serving all the way through. If you're not sure how the food has been stored, or if it looks or smells off, don't taste it, just throw it out.
How long meal-prepped food lasts
Refrigerate cooked food rather than leaving it out for a long period of time. If you've made a lot of it, put it into shallow covered containers. That way the food will cool more quickly and you'll have individual servings to grab later.
For a household rule of thumb, plan to consume refrigerated leftover cooked foods within a few days. How long is too long to keep them depends on the type of ingredients, how they were cooked, the temperature of the fridge and the handling of the food. If you don't expect to eat the leftovers within that time frame, freeze them as soon as they have cooled.
Organize the refrigerator
- Keep your refrigerator cool. Do not overfill it, leaving enough room for food to be stored correctly.
- Put a date of preparation on every container.
- Place newer items behind older ones to ensure that older food gets used up first.
- If you use sealed containers they should not leak.
Reheat only what you need
If you can, reheat just the amount of food you're going to eat. Stir rice, soup, casseroles, etc. to distribute the heat throughout the food. Make sure the middle is hot before eating. Follow your appliance's instructions and use a thermometer when needed.
When to throw food away
You can't rely on smell or visual inspection to know for sure whether food is safe to eat. Toss it if it has been sitting out too long, if it's been stored improperly, or if there's no way of knowing how it's been stored. Mold, a strange odor, a ruptured package, or a slimy consistency are all obvious reasons to throw food away. But even food that appears and smells fine could be unsafe.
For meal prep to work, you have to prepare what you're actually going to eat. If you prepare a huge batch and let it sit in the fridge for weeks, that's not very helpful. Sometimes it's better to do fewer meals at a time.