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Refrigeration is awesome, and having a big refrigerator that's full of food can make you feel secure and happy. But that large, full refrigerator can hide food from your line of sight, causing you to temporarily forget about it. And there are other foods that you haven't forgotten about... but they've been in the fridge for a long time, haven't they? It's always a good idea to clean out the refrigerator on a regular basis, and it's even better if those clean-outs are frequent. You need to know what should stay in the refrigerator when you go through your food, because some of those items don't have the long shelf lives you thought they did. And others shouldn't be in the refrigerator at all.
Whether you're going through things after a prolonged power outage or just conducting a weekly inspection, knowing what to take out helps you run your kitchen more efficiently. You have more refrigerator space, the food you do store may taste better, and you reduce the risk of getting sick. You also figure out how much food you really need to buy, resulting in less waste. So, let's take a look at things you might want to toss from your fridge right now and see what you can do store them properly for better quality and safety.
That open jar of pasta sauce
Pasta sauce may have a long shelf life when unopened, but once you open it, you don't have much time to use it at all. Depending on the source and the ingredients in the sauce, you may have three to seven days. Note that in the refrigerator, sauces with meat and cream tend to last only three to four days. Try not to buy larger jars of cream-based sauce than you have to. Tomato sauces last more toward the longer end of that range.
Freezing isn't always an option. Tomato-based sauces do freeze very well, but there's some dispute about cream-based sauces and whether they'll break upon thawing. "Breaking" means having the fat and liquid in the cream separate, and it's not that easy to get broken sauce to mix up properly. As for tomato-based sauces without meat, those silicone soup-and-sauce freezer molds work best for freezing. But if you don't have those, you can use freezer bags. Spoon a specific amount of the sauce, like ½ to 1 cup, into the bag. Lay the bag on the counter on its side, holding the mouth of the bag up so nothing spills out, and gently pat the sauce into a flat layer. Press out extra air and seal the bag. Freeze flat for easier storage. Thaw in the refrigerator, or just break up the frozen sauce into chunks and place them in a pan on low heat.
Many of those condiments
Most people have refrigerator door shelves laden with sauces, dressings, and seasonings that sit there seemingly forever. That can be a real problem because condiments don't actually last forever. Yes, some last a very long time -- hello, commercially bottled soy sauce with its two- to three-year opened shelf life when refrigerated properly -- but others become unsafe to eat within a surprisingly short amount of time. Most condiments have best-before dates, rather than strict expiration dates, so some discretion is possible. But you do have to start checking for signs of spoilage, and that condiment still isn't going to last much longer. Most importantly, many condiments have much shorter shelf lives once opened, regardless of best-before dates.
It really helps to keep a list of opened-condiment "expiration" dates on your refrigerator and to note when you've opened each bottle. Don't rely on your memory; guaranteed in a few months you won't remember when you opened that ketchup bottle, which may be good for only six months after opening. Save yourself the trouble and use painter's tape, masking tape, or those refrigerator and freezer labels to mark the date you opened something.
Open cans that still have food in them
Open cans that still have food in them are another item to throw out for three reasons. One has to do with the length of time; if the can has been in there for longer than the safe storage time for the food inside, it needs to go. That's an obvious one, but another reason that many people don't think about is that food can dry out when not in an airtight container. So, you could have food in a can that's only a couple of days old and still within its safe storage time, but it could be inedible because it's become too dry or gummy.
The third reason has nothing to do with food safety or immediate edibility: Food stored in the refrigerator in opened cans may take on a metallic flavor. It could still be safe to eat and generally edible while still having a slightly metal-like aftertaste. Instead, just transfer the leftover food in the can into a refrigerator storage container with a lid. That also stops odors from the food from stinking up your refrigerator. The food you transferred out of the can will also be better protected from odors from other food.
Bagged greens that are starting to brown
Bagged and pre-washed greens have made preparing salads so much easier, but the cut and torn leaves rot a lot faster than a whole head of lettuce or cabbage. It's common to see salad greens that are still within their best-before window that have slimy patches, or to find slimy leaves sticking to other leaves. If you have a bag of lettuce that's at least half slimy or brown, yeah, that's gotta go, especially if it's before its best-before date. Any slimy leaves or browned leaves are a sign of potential mishandling during processing.
But what if there are only a couple of slimy or brown bits? Good news, with a warning: If the greens have not yet passed the best-before date, and there are only a couple of small, slimy leaves, pick out the slimy or browned bits and continue to eat the salad. The warning is that, once you see slimy or brown bits, you need to use up the rest of the salad fast because the other leaves are likely going to turn brown quickly.
That forgotten carton of baking soda
An open carton of baking soda can help neutralize odors in your refrigerator by reacting with any acidic or basic/alkaline odor molecules that touch the baking soda. The molecules don't just fall onto and rest on the baking soda in layers; instead, all of the molecules -- odor and baking soda -- continue to float around and come into contact. That means that new odor molecules are always encountering the baking soda and becoming neutralized. However, baking soda doesn't last forever in this respect. Eventually, it becomes less effective. Some say that as long as there's baking soda in the box, you can leave it in, but a fresh box will be more effective.
Old baking soda isn't really a safety risk, but it does take up space. If the box of baking soda has been in your refrigerator for more than three months, remove it and replace it with a fresh box. In fact, you may want to replace the baking soda every one month, instead. By the way, you don't actually have to toss the old baking soda in the trash if it's in good condition. Don't cook with it, but use it for cleaning around the home, instead.
The meat you brought home... and forgot about
Raw meat can stay in the refrigerator for only so long, and if you exceed the safe storage time in the refrigerator, you have to discard the meat. Ground meats, including poultry and raw sausage meat, need to go in the freezer or be cooked within one to two days at most; if that ground beef or turkey you brought home has been in the refrigerator for more than two days, sorry, but you'll have to throw it out. You're not always going to be able to sniff out bacterial contamination. Fresh poultry pieces, such as whole chickens, turkey breasts, and so on, also have a two-day limit. However, in all of these cases, it's better to use or freeze the meat within one day. Raw organ meat also has a one- to two-day limit.
Raw steaks, roasts, and chops of beef, pork, lamb, and veal have a little longer: three to five days. As for ham, an uncured, uncooked ham gets three to five days, while cured and uncooked gets five to seven. Anything past that, and the meat has to go in the garbage. To avoid waste, set aside time after each shopping trip to wrap up and freeze the meat immediately if you know you're not using it that day or the next.
The opened carton of egg substitute
Egg substitutes can last a while when unopened, and you may find use-by dates of up to six weeks or so after purchasing for unopened cartons (don't keep any unopened egg products without use-by dates longer than a week). However, once you open the carton, you've got only three days to figure out what to do with the substitute. What's worse is that you can't freeze opened liquid egg products, and many even have warning labels that say not to freeze them at all even if unopened.
If you find yourself with extra egg substitute, and that three-day mark is here, cook the eggs and freeze them. Scramble the eggs and use them for freezer breakfast sandwiches or breakfast burritos, or make a frittata and freeze individual portions. Use up the sandwiches, burritos, and frittatas within three months for best quality. You can also bake the scrambled eggs on a sheet pan, slice them into squares, and freeze those. Let the eggs and pan cool, slice the eggs and ensure they're not stuck to the pan, stick the pan in the freezer for a short time to let the eggs become firm, and then store the squares in a freezer bag with pieces of parchment or wax paper between each.
Fruits and vegetables, depending on type and time
Fruits and vegetables all have different storage times, and determining when to toss them requires checking them over frequently. When fruits and vegetables become wrinkled, go soft, smell bad, or ooze liquid, they need to go, and the timing for each is just going to vary. If they look fine, but you eat some and think they taste terrible, toss the rest of the bag or bunch. Mold means they definitely need to go, now. Some last much longer than others; for example, uncut, unpeeled carrots are generally okay for at least a couple of weeks if not longer, depending on how you store them. Toss them when they become soft or slimy. But blackberries? You're looking at a week at most, and more likely just a couple of days.
By the way, if you store fruits and vegetables that normally live on the counter in the refrigerator instead, keep something in mind. Yes, we know the refrigerator may not be the absolute perfect dream place to store certain items. If you live in the southern half of the U.S. or have ever had a bug-attracting neighbor, though, you know exactly why some people avoid counter storage. Some items actually go bad faster in the cold temperatures; for example, the refrigerator can lead to garlic sprouting more quickly. Check over all items every couple of days, and never assume something will last as long as you think it should.
Bread
The refrigerator is one of the worst places to put bread if you're trying to make it last longer and don't want to toast it. The cold temperature of the refrigerator helps the starches in the bread toughen up, especially if you leave the bread unwrapped or the bag open so that moisture in the bread evaporates. Refrigerator temperatures are in just the right range to really mess with bread's structure. You can toast the bread to reverse this toughening process. But if you want to eat plain, un-toasted bread, the refrigerator is not a good storage site. There's also a mold-formation risk if condensation forms on the bread.
We're not talking about that half sandwich you want to save for later in the day, although you do need to wrap that up in plastic or foil if you refrigerate it. We're talking about those loaves you want to make last longer than a few days. With food prices rising, though, how do you preserve bread so that you don't end up wasting part of the loaf? Freeze it. Wrap the loaf in plastic or foil because moisture can still leach out of the bread as it freezes. But a loaf left in a tightly sealed bag, or wrapped in plastic or foil, will retain that moisture, and the starch-toughening process comes to a halt in freezing temperatures. Frozen bread thaws quickly. However, use frozen bread within three months for best quality. Remember to slice homemade loaves before freezing.
Opened pickles
Pickles have a reputation for lasting a long time, but that's only true for unopened jars that were sealed and canned using a water-bath method. Even they have their limits once you've opened the jar. Pickles are made using one of two methods. One method is water-bath canning, and the other is brining. Water-bath canned pickles are the ones that sit on unrefrigerated shelves in the store, although you need to refrigerate them once you've opened the jar. These pickles were canned like jams, where they're packed into sterile jars and submerged in boiling water. Brined pickles are the ones that you buy from the refrigerated section at the market. These are cooked in hot or cold brines and don't go through the heat treatment (even with a hot brine) that would make a product shelf-stable. They're similar to homemade refrigerator pickles in this aspect.
Unopened canned pickles (the shelf-stable stuff) can last at least a year. However, opened canned pickles, and both unopened and opened brined/refrigerator pickles, are best within one month of opening/brining. After that, the quality will decline. If the pickles are discolored, the lid starts bulging, or the brine starts fizzing, toss the pickles. Some kosher or full-sour varieties may still be okay with a little fizzing, but you're better off tossing them unless the manufacturer has specifically said they'd still be safe to eat. The USDA advises tossing all opened jars of pickles no more than three months after opening.
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Read the original article on Chowhound.