There seems to be widespread consensus that cooked turkey is only safe 3—4 days in the fridge. I’m on day 7 and it has the wrong odor. Can it be salvaged?
I am certain that I can kill all the bacteria. But really the interesting question is whether the type¹ of bacteria that likes cooked turkey produces heat-resistant toxins.
These articles say you can kill all the bacteria by cooking:
- https://thetrashcanturkey.com/does-cooking-a-turkey-kill-all-bacteria/
- https://stellinamarfa.com/meat/does-cooking-a-turkey-kill-the-bacteria/
- https://www.chefsresource.com/can-you-cook-bacteria-out-of-turkey/
So they all imply it’s safe to re-cook, but they neglect the critical question about toxins. Any ideas?
① stellinamarfa: “One turkey can contain Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter, and other germs”.
Are those the kinds of bacteria that produce poisons?
I mean, really, “bad smell”, and you want to try to “save” it?
No, just no.
I don’t have bacteria phobia, but any sound science on food poisoning risks would be useful.
I just found this article which lists Clostridium perfringens as producing a harmful exotoxin. From there, it would be interesting to know if Clostridium perfringens likes cooked turkey (as opposed to just raw). But without a solid answer on that, I guess I will toss the turkey.
If you’re able to smell the products of the bacteria, it’s not safe to consume.
The smell test is step 1 in determining whether food is safe to eat, and your turkey failed this step. There’s no way to know what bacteria colonized it outside of growing cultures.
If you’re able to smell the products of the bacteria,
Your phrasing implies that the bacteria itself is odorless and that any new odor (other than what cooked turkey normally smells like) is entirely borne from bacteria output. Is that correct?
The food was sealed so odor builds. Upon opening the bag I get a full strength dose of the odor – which is gone if I miss the opportunity to do the instant sniff. What plays tricks with my mind is the fact that sometimes an odor is just a stronger dose of the normal food odor. But as something rots there is a gradual subtle increase in new odors that makes it hard to know. I have always lived on the edge in this regard and consume borderline cases where it’s hard to tell. And I have always gotten away with it… never had food poisoning.
In any case, the turkey odor clearly had some wrong odors so I opted to freeze it to use as rat bait the next time rats invade the house (along with a frozen raw beef steak where I was also too slow to consume). I now have enough rat bait to take on 100+ rats. And what I’ll probably find is that the rats are smart enough to avoid it.
What consensus? Properly cooked meat stored properly in the refrigerator should be fine for at least a week.
Of course, the true test is the sniff test, and if it smells off, that’s because it’s no longer safe to eat. Unless you are completely without other options, throw it out.
This should be used as an opportunity to look into why it went bad so quickly. Was it undercooked? Not sealed in an airtight container? Left out at a warm temperature all day before going in the fridge? Stuck in the fridge as a giant, hot mass, raising the temperature of the entire unit?
In a web search on how long cooked turkey lasts, the results were 3—4 days in the fridge in the first ~20 or so hits. Exceptionally, one deviant article said 5—7 days but I lost track of it.
I regret not vacuum sealing the meat, each piece individually. All was in a big zip lock. On day 1 and day 2 I opened it to pull out a piece, which was more opportunities for contamination. Some sites say there is only a 2 hour window of time to get it into the fridge after the initial cooking. In my case that was probably more like ~6 hours. So I guess I made plenty of mistakes.
And I’m assuming you opened and closed and opened and closed the fridge for other items, as well as not having perfect seals.
7 days would 100% be for very ideal if not perfect conditions.
Throw it out. Even if you killed off the bacteria, the endotoxins would remain and make you very ill.
You can’t un-rot food.
You know what sounds like fun? Food poisoning.
- OP, probably.
There is a quite useful PDF version for printing. As I was saving the PDF, I noticed I had already saved that PDF before.
Turkey soup!
I see this as your only option. Cook long slow and add enough spice to cover up the fridge flavor
I’d be quite happy to make soup with it. After re-roasting and boiling it, the foul odor is gone. I’m sure it would taste fine.
But some people seem convinced it cannot be salvaged by any process. If it has clostridium perfringens, even if I kill the bacteria in the recook, it would have an exotoxin that would survive any amount of cooking.
I really wish I could have easily tested or know from the odor whether clostridium perfringens was present. The odor could have come from a less dangerous bacteria but I guess it’d be a risky gamble.
No, just no. You may be able to get rid of the bacteria, but not of what they leave behind. If it smells, throw it out. It’s not worth risking your health over it, you can get seriously sick from this. Learn from it and put things into the freezer the next time, or eat it in time, instead of making even dumber decisions.
Assume it will kill you.
