A closed fridge keeps food safe for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48 hours, a half-full one about 24. If the fridge was without power for more than 4 hours, throw out the perishables: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, soft cheese, cooked leftovers and anything with mayonnaise or a creamy dressing. Hard cheese, butter, uncut fruit and vegetables, bread and most condiments can stay. Freezer food that still has ice crystals, or is at 40°F or below, can be refrozen. Never taste food to find out if it’s safe. When in doubt, throw it out.
Fall is when the power goes out: a windstorm takes down a line, a utility shuts off power ahead of high fire risk, an early snow lands on trees that still have their leaves. When it comes back, the question in the kitchen is always the same. There’s a fridge full of groceries, a freezer full of meat, and you don’t want to throw out $200 of food, or to make anyone sick.
This guide follows the federal guidance: the FDA’s food safety during power outages page and the USDA charts published on FoodSafety.gov. The charts at the end of the article are condensed from those.
While the power is still out
If you’re reading this in the dark, the most useful thing you can do is nothing: keep the fridge and freezer doors shut. The FDA says an unopened fridge keeps food cold for about 4 hours, and a full freezer holds its temperature for about 48 hours (24 if it’s half full).
- Plan for hour 4. The FDA suggests coolers for refrigerated food if the outage will run past 4 hours. Pack the milk, meat and leftovers into a cooler with ice or frozen gel packs, and keep the lid closed.
- Buy ice for a long outage. Dry ice or block ice keeps a fridge colder for longer. The FDA’s figure: 50 pounds of dry ice should keep a fully stocked 18-cubic-foot freezer cold for two days. Handle dry ice with gloves and keep the room ventilated.
- Keep frozen food together. Packed tightly, frozen packages keep each other cold.
- Don’t put the food outside, even when it’s cold. The USDA warns that outdoor temperatures change hour by hour and the sun can warm food on a cold day; our guide to using a cooler, the garage and the porch goes through why a cooler with ice works and a snowbank doesn’t.
If you do cook something that is still cold enough (meat, poultry, fish or eggs), cook it all the way through, and throw out any perishable food that has sat at room temperature for 2 hours or more (1 hour above 90°F).
When the power comes back: check the temperature, not the smell
The decision rests on two numbers: how warm the food got, and for how long. Here is how the FDA says to check:
- Freezer first. If you keep an appliance thermometer in the freezer and it reads 40°F or below, the food is safe and can be refrozen. No thermometer? Check each package. If it still contains ice crystals or is 40°F or below, it can be refrozen or cooked.
- Then the fridge. If the power was out for no more than 4 hours and the doors stayed shut, refrigerated food should be safe. If it was longer, throw out perishable food (meat, poultry, seafood, milk, eggs, leftovers) that sat above 40°F for 4 hours or more.
- In between, use a food thermometer. The FDA says perishable food that measures 45°F or below with a food thermometer should be safe, but should be cooked and eaten as soon as possible.
What doesn’t work: looking at it, sniffing it, or tasting a little. The FDA says you can’t rely on appearance or odor, and that perishable food that wasn’t kept cold enough can cause illness even when it is thoroughly cooked. Bacteria that cause food poisoning usually don’t change how food smells or looks.
If you don’t know how long the fridge was warm (you were away, or asleep, and there’s no thermometer), count from when the power went out. More than 4 hours with no reading means the perishables go.
Fridge: what to keep and what to throw out
This is condensed from the USDA’s refrigerated food chart on FoodSafety.gov. It applies to food that has been at 40°F or above for more than 2 hours. If your fridge stayed at 40°F or below, everything is fine.
| Food | Keep or discard |
|---|---|
| Raw or cooked meat, poultry, fish, seafood; soy meat substitutes; thawing meat | Discard |
| Lunchmeat, hot dogs, bacon, sausage; pizza; meat, tuna, chicken or egg salad | Discard |
| Casseroles, soups, stews, gravy, stuffing, broth; cooked pasta, rice and potatoes | Discard |
| Milk, cream, sour cream, yogurt, buttermilk, soy milk; opened baby formula | Discard |
| Eggs (raw or hard-cooked), egg dishes, custards, puddings, quiche, cheesecake, cream pies | Discard |
| Soft cheeses (brie, cream cheese, cottage, ricotta, mozzarella, Monterey Jack, queso fresco); shredded and low-fat cheese | Discard |
| Hard cheeses (cheddar, Swiss, Parmesan, provolone); processed cheese; grated Parmesan in a can or jar | Keep |
| Butter, margarine | Keep |
| Cut fruit, cut vegetables, bagged pre-washed greens, cooked vegetables, cooked tofu | Discard |
| Uncut fresh fruit and vegetables, mushrooms, herbs; opened fruit juice and canned fruit | Keep |
| Opened mayonnaise, tartar sauce, horseradish | Discard if above 50°F for more than 8 hours |
| Creamy dressings, opened spaghetti sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, garlic in oil | Discard |
| Ketchup, mustard, jelly, relish, pickles, olives, peanut butter, soy, Worcestershire, barbecue and hoisin sauce, vinegar-based dressings | Keep |
| Bread, rolls, tortillas, cakes, muffins, fruit pies; waffles, pancakes, bagels | Keep |
| Refrigerator biscuit and cookie dough, fresh pasta, cream-filled pastries | Discard |
Two things catch people out. Shredded cheese goes, but the block of cheddar stays: shredding gives bacteria far more surface to grow on. And leftovers go even when they look perfect, which usually includes the pot of chili or soup from the night before. (If that pot is a regular habit, how to cool a big batch of soup safely is worth a read too.)
Freezer: refreeze or throw out
The rule for the freezer is more forgiving. Food that still has ice crystals, or feels as cold as if it had been in the fridge (40°F or below), can be refrozen, though the texture of some foods will suffer. Food that has been above 40°F for more than 2 hours is a different story:
| Food | Still has ice crystals, fridge-cold | Above 40°F for more than 2 hours |
|---|---|---|
| Meat, poultry, seafood; soups and stews | Refreeze | Discard |
| Frozen meals, pizza, casseroles, meat pies | Refreeze | Discard |
| Ice cream, frozen yogurt | Discard | Discard |
| Milk, soft cheese, shredded cheese, eggs out of the shell, cheesecake | Refreeze (some texture loss) | Discard |
| Hard cheese | Refreeze | Refreeze |
| Fruit and fruit juice | Refreeze | Refreeze; discard if moldy, slimy or yeasty-smelling |
| Vegetables and vegetable juice | Refreeze | Discard after 6 hours above 40°F |
| Bread, rolls, muffins, plain cakes; waffles, pancakes, bagels; flour, nuts | Refreeze | Refreeze |
| Cakes and pies with custard or cheese filling | Refreeze | Discard |
| Pie crust, bread dough | Refreeze | Refreeze (quality loss is considerable) |
Refrozen meat that partly thawed is safe but will be drier and looser in texture. Use it first, in dishes where that doesn’t matter: stews, chili, sauces, casseroles.
Before the next outage
Most of the hard calls above come from not knowing how warm it got. A $5 appliance thermometer in the fridge and another in the freezer turn the guesswork into a reading, and the FDA lists them first in its preparation checklist (fridge at 40°F or below, freezer at 0°F or below). The rest of its list is cheap too: keep a few containers of frozen water or gel packs in the freezer, freeze milk and meat you won’t need right away, and know where to buy ice.
A trick that some households use (it isn’t in the federal guidance): freeze a cup of water, put a coin on top once it’s solid, and leave it in the freezer. If you come home to find the coin at the bottom, the freezer thawed while you were away, even if everything has refrozen since.
Where RecipeScan helps, and where it doesn’t
We make RecipeScan, so weigh this section accordingly. It can’t tell you whether your food is safe. It doesn’t know the power went out, it can’t read a temperature, and it doesn’t know the rules in the charts above. A thermometer and this page do that part.
Where it helps is the cleanup. RecipeScan’s pantry list, under Kitchen → See all pantry items, groups what you have by Fridge, Freezer, Pantry and Cabinet, so you can open the Fridge list and go shelf by shelf through the table above. Press and hold an item to Delete what you’re throwing out. For refrozen meat you want to use soon, tap Edit and set an earlier expiry date, so it shows up in the app’s “expiring soon” list instead of being forgotten at the back of the freezer. Then put what you need to replace on the grocery list.
What’s Premium: scanning your shelves or a grocery receipt into the pantry with the camera, and the AI recipe ideas built from what’s left. Typing items in, editing dates and deleting them are done by hand.
Frequently asked questions
How long does food last in the fridge without power?
About 4 hours, if the door stays closed. After that, the USDA says to throw out refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk and leftovers. Hard cheese, butter, uncut fruit and vegetables, bread and most condiments can be kept.
How long does a freezer stay frozen without power?
About 48 hours if it is full and the door stays closed, and about 24 hours if it is half full.
Can you refreeze food that thawed during a power outage?
Yes, if it still has ice crystals or is at 40°F or below. It is safe to refreeze or cook, though some foods lose texture. Ice cream and frozen yogurt that thawed should be thrown out.
Is meat safe if it smells fine after a power outage?
Not necessarily. Smell and appearance do not tell you whether food is safe, and cooking does not make perishable food safe once it has been too warm for too long. Go by temperature and time, never by tasting it.
What do I do if I don't know how warm the fridge got?
Assume the worst. If the power was out for more than 4 hours and you have no thermometer reading, throw out the perishable food: meat, poultry, seafood, milk, soft cheese, eggs and leftovers.
Your next step
If the power is back now: open the freezer first and check for ice crystals, then go through the fridge with the table above, starting with meat, dairy, eggs and leftovers. Bag what goes, and cook the refrozen or 45°F-and-under food in the next day or two. Then put an appliance thermometer on your shopping list, one for each compartment, so next time the answer is a number.
Still without power and expecting it to last? Fill a cooler with ice before hour 4 and move the milk, meat and leftovers into it. If you’re traveling with one, our road-trip cooler plan covers how to keep it at 40°F.
Restock without the guesswork
Clear the thrown-out food from your RecipeScan pantry, date what you refroze so it gets cooked first, and build the grocery list for what you need to replace.
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