Information Knowledge Article. Most recipes for marinating meat and poultry recommend six hours up to 24 hours. It is safe to keep the food in the marinade longer, but after two days it is possible that the marinade can start to break down the fibers of the meat, causing it to become mushy.
Always marinate meat and poultry in the refrigerator, and boil the used marinade if you want to brush it on the meat or poultry while it's grilling. Do not save the used marinade. Related Information Title. You'll also want to pay attention to how you store it.
Keep unopened, store-bought ground beef in its original packaging, and store it in the bottom shelf of the refrigerator towards the back. Say you've cooked up a pound of ground beef for taco night , how long will that last you in the fridge? Like all leftovers , cooked meats will last in the refrigerator for three to four days , according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The only surefire way to make your ground beef last beyond just a couple days is to freeze it.
When kept in the freezer at 0 degrees F or below , ground beef and other ground meats will last for three to four months. To freeze ground beef, leave it in its original packaging, and wrap it in heavy-duty aluminum foil, plastic wrap, freezer paper, or place it in a freezer-safe plastic bag in order to prevent freezer burn.
Few recommend longer than overnight marinating. After that, the tang from the acidity becomes too assertive. The texture of the meat is also affected, with small pieces or slices developing an odd, mushy texture. The exception to this rule is large cuts of meat, especially wild-caught game, which can marinate for three days or longer.
If you need to store your marinated, uncooked meat for longer than a day, it's usually better to package and freeze it after a few hours in the marinade. Draining the marinade from the meat minimizes any further effect, so it's your best option if you've already marinated your meat for the optimal length of time. Alternatively you can freeze the meat in the marinade as soon as it's mixed, or shortly after. The marinade continues to act on the meat while it's frozen, and is ready to cook as soon as it thaws.
Freeze portions of unused marinade separately, to use as a glaze or sauce. The marinade from the meat can be used instead, but it should be boiled first to kill any bacteria. I'm not sure if that makes a difference. I can't see any reason for the marinating itself to make any difference.
If it's safe to leave the un-marinated meat in the same conditions for the same length of time, then it's safe to marinate it for that long. Five days in the refrigerator is definitely stretching it for chicken - usually no more than a few days is recommended, and that's assuming it was fresh when you bought it not a day before the sell-by date. Even if it's safe, it's not going to be very good. I've accidentally left raw chicken in the refrigerator and forgotten about it before, and it started to smell "off" after about 4 days.
I hate to say it, but I wouldn't use it at this point. As for the steak, you're probably okay, because you only have surface bacteria, but I would cook it well and right away. Again, most cooks I know will recommend no more than a few days in the fridge. I've heard people say that weak acids such as lime juice "preserve" the meat, but never from a reliable source; even if it worked, every marinade is different and it would be nearly impossible to predict the exact amount of time it preserves for.
You have no idea how much bacteria existed at the outset, and even if the marinade somehow helped to inhibit growth of new bacteria, the "spoiled-ness" of raw meat doesn't come from the bacteria itself but from the toxins they leave behind. It's not a requirement for the bacteria to multiply in order for the food to spoil, if enough existed in the first place.
Unless somebody has it on good authority that marinating makes any significant difference, I refuse to put any stock in that bit of folk wisdom and recommend that others be equally skeptical. While health concerns for storing meat are very real, in the scope of this question it's actually not an issue. No amount of time you are going to marinate something that will yield a good result is going to pose a health hazard unless your meat is near expiration to begin with.
Consider the following:. For most marinades, you will get very little difference flavor-wise from 20 minutes or several hours. In fact, you will get the most flavor by doing a short marinating right before cooking, then reapplying a coating of the marinade just before the food is done cooking.
For marinades that are meant to soak for more than a few hours, they generally call for about 24 hours. This is not an unsafe length of time.
Longer than 24 hours is going to have no positive effects on your food For brining you may be leaving your meat sitting for much longer, but it is in solution specifically designed to preserve the meat and kill bacteria. So all in all, as long as you follow general health and safety principles with your food, you'll be just fine. You can store marinated poultry in your refrigerator for 2 days.
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