How long leftovers last in the fridge: dish by dish, and who says so
Every dish in your container, one by one: what the US FDA and the UK's FSA say, where they disagree, and how many days FreshTrack suggests for each.
The short answer
Cooked food lasts 2 to 4 days in the fridge, depending on who you ask:
- FSA (UK): leftovers within 48 hours. Rice within 24 hours.
- FDA (US): leftovers within 3 to 4 days.
Both agree on the groundwork: food goes into the fridge within two hours, and the fridge is cold (32-41 °F, or 0-5 °C, per the FSA; 40 °F (4 °C) or below per the FDA). What separates them is the margin they allow after that.
If you know you won't get to it in time, freeze it the same day, not on the last day. At 0 °F (-18 °C) food stays safe indefinitely; the months you'll see below are about quality, not safety. Dish by dish:
Dish by dish
FreshTrack ships with ten cooked-food types (and two raw ones, meat and fish, which aren't covered here). This table puts the two agencies next to each other for each one, along with the days the app suggests by default.
| Dish | Fridge, FDA | Fridge, FSA | Freezer, FDA (quality) | FreshTrack default (fridge / freezer) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked rice | 3-4 days† | 24 hours | no figure | 2 days / 3 months |
| Cooked pasta | 3-4 days† | 48 hours† | no figure | 3 days / 2 months |
| Legumes / stew | 3-4 days | 48 hours† | 2-3 months | 3 days / 3 months |
| Soup / cream | 3-4 days | 48 hours† | 2-3 months | 3 days / 3 months |
| Cooked meat | 3-4 days | 48 hours† | 2-3 months | 3 days / 3 months |
| Cooked fish | 3-4 days | 48 hours† | 4-6 months | 2 days / 2 months |
| Cooked vegetables | 3-4 days† | 48 hours† | no figure | 3 days / 2 months |
| Omelette / egg | 3-4 days† | 48 hours† | no figure | 2 days / 1 month |
| Homemade sauce | 3-4 days† | 48 hours† | no figure | 4 days / 3 months |
| Homemade dessert | 3-4 days† | 48 hours† | no figure | 3 days / 1 month |
Sources: FDA, Refrigerator & Freezer Storage Chart (March 2018); FDA, Food Safety Tips for Healthy Holidays (content current as of 31 January 2025); FSA, Cooking your food and Home food fact checker (updated 21 August 2026). FreshTrack days: the app's factory defaults.
† No figure of its own for that dish. Those cells show the general leftovers rule: "Leftovers should be used within three to four days" (FDA) and "Eat leftovers within 48 hours" (FSA). We haven't filled in any cell with a number the agencies don't give.
Three things to know when reading the table:
- Legumes and stews, and soups and creams, use the FDA's "Soups & Stews" row (vegetable- or meat-based). Cooked meat uses "Cooked meat & meat dishes"; fish uses "Cooked fish".
- Sauces: the FDA only gives a figure for meat gravy: 1-2 days in the fridge and 2-3 months in the freezer. For a homemade tomato sauce, neither agency gives a figure. The app suggests 4 days: more than that gravy, and more than the FSA's 48 hours.
- Eggs and pasta: the FDA gives 1 week for hard-cooked eggs and 3-5 days for homemade egg, chicken, tuna, ham or macaroni salads; both are "don't freeze". An omelette isn't a hard-cooked egg, and pasta with tomato sauce isn't a macaroni salad, so they follow the general rule.
Whichever column you follow, count from the day you cooked and write it on the lid. If you also want to keep track of the whole freezer, not just each container, that's in our guide to a freezer inventory.
The rice exception
Rice is where the two agencies part ways most, and the only dish with a shorter limit of its own from the FSA. According to the FSA, uncooked rice can contain Bacillus cereus spores, and those spores can survive cooking. The longer cooked rice sits at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or their toxins make it unsafe.
Hence the FSA's firm line: "Rice may be eaten cold if it is cooled down quickly. Put the rice in the fridge and consume within 24 hours." It also clarifies: reheating isn't what causes the problem; it's how the rice was stored before.
The FDA chart has no rice row, so the table compares against its general 3-4 day rule. If you have to pick, pick the FSA's. Either way:
- Cool it within an hour if you can. That's the FSA's advice.
- Split it into small portions; it cools faster.
- Don't leave it in the pot, the rice cooker or the steamer to cool.
- Reheat it once only, until it's steaming hot all the way through.
- If you freeze it, do it within the first hour of cooking: the FSA says that stops the bacteria multiplying and producing toxin. Thaw it in the fridge.
Why the agencies disagree
Neither agency explains, in the consumer pages we read, why it chose 48 hours or 3-4 days, and we won't make up a reason. What you can see is the difference in setup: the FDA works out its limits for a fridge at 40 °F (4 °C) or below; the FSA accepts a fridge between 32 and 41 °F (0-5 °C) and gives fewer days.
Which to follow is up to you. For the widest margin, use the shorter time in the table. If your fridge is at 40 °F (4 °C) or below (check with a thermometer; the FSA suggests checking once a week) and you cool food quickly, 3-4 days is the FDA's figure.
And where does FreshTrack sit? Not always on the cautious side, and you should know:
- Cooked rice: 2 days. The FSA says 24 hours. The app gives twice that.
- Pasta, legumes, soup, meat, vegetables and dessert: 3 days; sauce: 4. The FSA says 48 hours. That's the low end of the FDA's 3-4 days, but longer than the FSA allows.
- Cooked fish and omelette: 2 days. Same as the FSA.
- Freezer: cooked fish comes out at 2 months, below the FDA's 4-6; meat and stews at 3 months, at the top of the FDA's 2-3.
If you'd rather follow the FSA, you can change it: Settings → Expiration times, tap the food type (for example "Cooked rice") and lower "Fridge" to 1 day. The fridge accepts 1 to 30 days and the freezer 1 to 365. The change applies to containers you fill afterwards; ones that are already full keep their date.
When the clock starts
Neither the FDA nor the FSA defines a "day one" more precisely than "leftovers". The cautious reading, and the one we use, is to count from the day you cooked, not from the day you open the container.
- Reheating doesn't reset the clock. The FSA pages we read don't say it restarts it, and they do say to reheat only once: repeated changes in temperature give bacteria more chances to grow.
- In FreshTrack, day one is the day you fill the container in the app. If you cook on Sunday and log it on Monday, the app gives you a day extra. Fill it as you put it away.
- If you move it from the fridge to the freezer, the app recalculates the date with the food type's rule, counted from the day you filled it, not the day you froze it. A stew filled on Monday and frozen on Wednesday expires 90 days after Monday.
The two-hour rule and how to cool food fast
- Two hours at most between cooking and the food being in the fridge or freezer; one hour if it's hotter than 90 °F (32 °C). That's the FDA.
- Small portions, shallow containers, and not the whole hot pot. The FDA says shallow containers; the FSA, smaller portions, cooled and into the fridge within one to two hours, with no hot or warm food going in.
- Covered, and on the top shelf. The FDA: covered containers or sealed bags, and check leftovers daily. Spain's Ministry of Consumer Affairs: cooked food on top, apart from raw.
- Fridge at 32-41 °F (0-5 °C) (FSA and the Spanish ministry) or 40 °F (4 °C) or below (FDA).
When to freeze it, and how long it lasts there
Freeze it when you decide to, not when there's one day left. The FSA says leftovers and homemade food should be frozen "as soon as possible", cooled first and in portions.
- At 0 °F (-18 °C) food is safe indefinitely, says the FDA: the times in the table are about quality (texture, flavour), not safety.
- Thaw in the fridge and use within 24 hours (FSA).
- You can freeze cooked food again, but after that you can only reheat it once (FSA).
- What doesn't freeze: the FDA marks hard-cooked eggs and homemade egg, chicken, tuna, ham or macaroni salads as "don't freeze".
For raw meat, fish or bread, and for anything you buy rather than cook, the times are different: see our guide to how long food lasts in the freezer.
Why smell is no test
"It smells fine, can I eat it?" Both agencies say that isn't enough.
The FDA: food can make you very sick "even when it doesn't look, smell, or taste spoiled", because the bacteria behind food poisoning aren't the ones that make food "go bad". The FSA, about foods with a use-by date: the sniff test won't work, because you can't smell the bugs that cause food poisoning.
Leftovers carry no printed date: you are the date. If you don't know when you cooked them, when in doubt, throw them out.
By hand, or with FreshTrack
You can do all of this by hand, with the table above, a marker and a strip of tape.
Write the day you cooked on the lid and check the table when it's due. If you'd rather not write by hand, an NFC tag on the lid does the same without ink.
We built FreshTrack because we didn't want to do the sums every Sunday. When you fill a container you choose what it is (the types in the table) and whether it goes in the fridge or the freezer; the app works out the date from those days, tells you when it expires and reminds you once a day: by default, two days before and at 9:00. The days and the time can be changed in Settings, so if you'd rather follow the FSA for rice, set it to 1 day. It's free, and it's ours.
The dates FreshTrack calculates are approximate estimates based on general food storage guidelines (such as the USDA FoodKeeper guide and food safety recommendations). They don't replace the use-by or best-before date printed on the package, nor your own judgement about the food's look, smell or taste. When in doubt, throw it out.