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Food Safety Cooking Series

To prevent cross-contamination, never place cooked food on plates that previously held raw meat or eggs and have different cutting boards for fresh produced and for meat products.

Use a safe cooking temperatures chart to determine when it has reached a safe internal temperature, than make a point of taking care of leftovers.

Foods like soup and chili often taste better on the second day following preparation, so regardless of what grandma or mom might have told you about waiting for hot foods to cool before refrigerating them, always refrigerate uneaten cooked foods as soon as possible. Never allow cooked foods to set at room temperature for more than two hours.

For larger leftover portions, use several small storage containers rather than one large one, and make sure leftovers are stored in airtight containers. How long leftovers can safely be kept depends on what the food is, but a good rule of thumb for leftover cooked beef is that it may be refrigerated 1-2 days or refrozen for 2-3 months.

When it's time to reheat leftovers, make sure they reach an internal temperature of 165°.

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