Please help!! Urgent Food Question!!!?

Question

Hi,
my wife made stew for supper. well it's still warm in the crock pot. there is a bunch left over and she made a huge batch. it is soooo good. anyway, what should i do with it now? Should i just stick the crock pot in the fridge? or should i put it into tupperware and freeze it? i'm sure it will get eaten soon, like within the next few days, but then again you never know it is a lot.
thanks

Thank you so much to everyone for their quick replies!! Isn't yahoo answers great? anyway, everything you all said sure helped a lot. I think I am going to put 1 tupperware container-full in the fridge and freeze the rest. I would hate to get preoccupied with something and forget about the stew in the fridge and have it go bad. Hey it's happened before - I have 3 kids!

anywho, since I have to wait 4 hours to give one of you the best answer, I will just wait until the next time i get online and give whoever has the highest rating the "best answer" vote. so it's up to you to pick the winner!

Thanks again.

Answer 1

i always put mine right in the fridge why waste another bowl

Answer 2

You must be careful when storing hot foods. Believe it or not, you should not put hot food in the fridge or the freezer. You must let it cool a bit before you do so. The best way to save any product would to be use a vacuum sealer, or you can put in in a freezer bag and close the bag from each end, then leave a half inch opening and suck out the air and seal it.

By the source included: "I always put very hot things in the refrigerator if I’m not going to serve them until later. Is that ‘improper cooling?’"

The short answer, I’m afraid, is yes.

To be as safe as possible, hot food must be cooled to 45 degrees Fahrenheit in under four hours, the food handler’s guide decrees.

That’s quite a trick, especially if the food to be cooled is a boiling batch of soup, a thick chili or a whole roasted turkey.

According to the guidelines, how you best cool food depends on the viscosity of the dish. The bottom line, though, is that all foods must be chilled as rapidly as possible, either by dividing the food into smaller parts or by surrounding it with an ice bath.

Putting hot foods in the fridge does not cool it fast enough and allows the product to come into the danger zone. It must be allowed to cool first, then put into the fridge or freezer.

Answer 3

Take it out of the crock pot and put into the tupperware and store in the fridge.

The concern with storing in the crock pot is that the crock will retain heat and the stew will take too long to cool in the center which will allow bacteria to possibly grow.

If you can you can parse it out into a couple smaller containers to it cools quicker.

Really no need to freeze especially if you expect to finish it off in a 3 or 4 days.

Answer 4

Put what you think you'll eat in the next few days in tupperware and refrigerate it. If theres anymore after that, freeze it in ziplock freezer bags. Stew is always better left-over. Hope this helps...

Answer 5

If you have some of those single-serving "glad-ware" containers, portion the stew out in those. Put four or so in the refrig. and freeze the rest.

Answer 6

Tupperware and freeze it. Bacteria is very resilient and freezing is the only way to be sure that everything is safe. While you were serving dinner the food was exposed to the air, serving instruments, etc.

If you do put it in the fridge eating it after one day is usually safe, more than one day, freeze.

Answer 7

Put it in shallow containers so that it cools down fast and store in the frdige, if you eat within three days it'll be fine.

Answer 8

the crockpot isn't air-tight and your food will spoil. Best bet would be to wait until it cools and then tupperware it.

Answer 9

Tupperware it