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As summer comes, fresh and delicious salads have become one of the indispensable dishes in the hot summer, especially for those who are on a diet. If you are exactly the people I mean, just keep reading, you will find this passage is helpful to a degree.
But how long does salad last?
Normally, it needs to be sealed and stored in the fridge within two hours of making or purchasing. Once it's stored in airtight and sealed containers separately, the salad will last for 3 to 5 days in the fridge. It will go bad after being left at room temperature of 60° F-70° F for more than two hours or at a temperature over 90°F for an hour.
In this article, we will present methods to help identify the freshness of salads. And we'll collect specific shelf times of salads in different situations, as well as storage tips.
How to Tell Whether Salad Is Bad?
First of all, if you are not quite sure whether your salad is bad, please don't taste it.
Besides, remember to toss out your salad if you meet the following situations:
1. If it develops an off odor or sour smell, it's time to let it go. So it's a good habit to give the salad a sniff test before eating.
2. If mold appears on the salad or container, or if the salad looks slimy and unappetizing, don't eat it anymore. So it's helpful to observe the status of salad before eating it.
3. If it is exposed to a high-temperature environment for a long time, it should be discarded. For example, if you left your salad preserved for more than 2 hours at room temperature of 60° F-70° F, or an hour at a temperature over 90°F, the salad will go bad. Since temperatures between 40 °F and 140 °F are a fantastic breeding condition for bacteria.
4. If It’s passed its expiration date or opened for more than five days, Or you don’t even remember when you’ve opened it, it’s best to toss out it.
5. Indeed, it’s better to be safe than sorry, which means that if you can't ensure the freshness of the salad, assume it isn’t and toss it directly.
How Long Does Potato Salad Last?
The answer depends on the situation.
For Used Salad After Activities
It's quite normal to choose ice tray drink salad containers to keep the freshness during the outdoor picnic or pool party. But we still don't recommend freezing leftovers after activities. For those salads used at a picnic and then placed back in the fridge, the shelf life is no more than the next day.
Proper Storage to Maximize the Shelf Life and Preserve the Taste
To maintain salad's taste and maximize its shelf life, it's supposed to freeze potato salad immediately, more specifically, to freeze it within two hours after you prepare or purchase it. Meanwhile, the storage container should be airtight and separate. In this way, potato salad will last for 3 to 5 days.
Different Shelf Times of Potato Salad in a Different Situation
When the temperature is between 40 °F and 140 °F, considering bacterial reproduction under this environment, potato salad could only preserve 2 hours at room temperature of 60° F-70° F, even an hour only while the temperature is over 90°F.
How Long Does Egg Salad Last? What About Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad, and Macaroni Salad?
According to the USDA(United States Department of Agriculture), egg salad will last for 3-5 days if it's stored in the fridge with a sealed airtight container. Moreover, you should pay attention to the time point, it needs to be frozen within 2 hours of preparing or purchasing.
Besides, egg salad can only last 2 hours at room temperature of 60° F-70° F.
If you have a pool party or picnic in the sunshiny afternoon, where the temperature is higher than 90°F, thus extra precaution should be taken, since egg salad will go bad if it's left out at a temperature over 90°F for more than an hour.
Maybe you can use an ice salad container to serve food and beverages during that time, but we don't recommend freezing leftovers again, since the shelf life is no more than the next day.
This principle also applies to similar salads such as potato salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, and macaroni salads.
Tips For Storage
1. Salad containers must be sealed and airtight, or it would be rancid even if freezing it is risky.
2. Egg salad should be stored separately in a container. If you can't handle that successfully, then extra precautions should be taken, such as wrapping the entire item in foil before sealing it in another airtight container in the refrigerator.
3. Don't eat via the container where you store egg salad directly. In this way, bacteria transferring could be avoided effectively.
Conclusion
As you can conclude from the above article, the shelf time of salad varies from different storage conditions, the properer storage method, the longer preservation period. But the longest shelf time is 5 days, so if your salad date exceeds this range, don't hesitate to classify it into kitchen waste.
Summer is coming, food easily goes bad, so the best way to keep freshness is to control ingredient quantity every time preparing salad. In this case, a salad chopper bowl is pretty useful, you can put ingredients in a bowl to measure if you can eat up all of them at one time.
In this special circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing food with neighbors and friends may isn't applicable anymore, but you can handle leftovers in another culinary method, such as roasting potato & egg salad. It would be much easier to keep food.
Last but not least, If you have no choice but to freeze salad, please pay attention to the above storage tips. Anyway, eat healthier, live happier. Wish you a wonderful life!
