Your Cornell CALS Holiday Handbook

According to food safety expert Abby Snyder and the USDA FoodKeeper app, unless the turkey is frozen, it might be time to get rid of it.

"Leftover turkey will deteriorate in quality over time. In the freezer, microbial growth is stopped. So, turkey can be kept in the freezer essentially indefinitely even though other, slower, changes to quality, like freezer burn, can eventually render leftovers unacceptable to consumers. However, this is not a safety issue, the turkey is still safe to eat. The quality of turkey stored in the refrigerator will deteriorate much more quickly. While there isn’t an exact number of days that leftover turkey in either the freezer or refrigerator will last, it can be useful to have an estimate of how quickly you should plan to use it, so you don’t end up throwing food away and contributing to food waste. A good source for estimates about how quickly to consume food to maintain quality is the USDA FoodKeeper app. Their recommendations are to consume refrigerated cooked turkey within four days and frozen turkey leftovers within six months to ensure quality."

Is it safe to store them outside in a pinch? Official recommendations say storing food outside is a bad idea. But if you must, food safety expert Abby Snyder offers guidance on how to do so while minimizing food safety risks.

"Official recommendations are that you should NOT keep food cold by storing it outside in the winter because of temperature fluctuations and the ingress of pests or animals. If, nonetheless, you’re going to store food outside, you can minimize these risks by ensuring the temperature remains at or below 40F and food is stored out of direct sunlight and is kept in a garage or on an enclosed porch to avoid attracting animals."