How long does uncooked risotto last?

Answer 1

As a rough guide, plain cooked rice or pasta, properly handled, appropriately stored and kept refrigerated right up until the time of use, will last about as long as fresh milk.

Risotto will necessarily have a number of ingredients which will affect its use-by time, so be guided by your sense of smell and taste and, especiallyl, by your commonsense!

I'd estimate up to three days for cooked and refrigerated risotto to remain safe. This is a very conservative estimate, but I'd not keep it more than a week.

Cooking more risotto than you can possibly use at one sitting is a brilliant plan. Few meals compare with a slice of cold risotto sizzled in unsalted butter or olive oil and topped with crisped bacon and a fried egg, unless you count the same procedure employed with the classic Irish colcannon, a blend of mashed potato and green vegetables such as leeks and cabbage.

The safe storage period of any food depends on various factors. These factors include type of food, mix and quality of ingredients and, most importantly, food-handling practices and storage.

Provided you observe optimal hygiene practices in your kitchen, many cooked foods remain safe for days; with poor hygiene you might as well not bother refrigerating prepared food for more than a day. There are many sources of information on food safety; you could start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety and go from there.

Basic food safety practices include:

• Tie up hair; wear clean clothes.
• Wash hands before food preparation and between all stages of preparation.
• Don't use kitchen cloths (tea towels) during food preparation; use disposable paper towels for hands and utensils.
• Never allow cooked and raw ingredients to come into contact with one another, and never use the same utensils to work with both.
• Don't use the same work surface - benchtops, cutting boards - for cooked and raw foods, meat and vegetables, and so on.
• Use glass or ceramic containers, well-sealed with a lid or cling-film once food is cold, to store cooked food.
• Above all, keep your fingers off your face and away from your mouth while preparing food! If tasting is necessary tap cooking food from your stirrer into a spoon for tasting; never return a tasting utensil to the pan.

Just a hint: don't use fresh herbs when cooking foods to be stored. Add your aromatic chopped greens on serving.