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?
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.