How long can soup sit out Reddit

I'd eat it, but the general recommendation by health professionals is that food must be refrigerated within 3 hours. After that, that is when bacteria and whatnot will start to thrive. I've looked into it before for this reason.

At the same time, I would give it a really good smell with your nose and go with your instinct (which would result in me eating it).

I've eaten chili that has sat for a week. Make a huge batch of chili (not at 2am), leave it on the stove, heat it up slowly for a few hours the next day, and have chili for dinner. Repeat the next night. Chili dinner for a week. Maybe heating it for a few hours before I ate it helped, maybe it didn't. But I didn't get sick or anything and it was delicious.

Again, the professional answer is: food must be refrigerated after 3 hours (at a certain temperature that I don't remember).

No chicken/veggie/other stock was added. I spent a good chunk of time roasting and grilling vegetables for this soup. I poured it into a plastic container that was mostly covered, to cool, then nodded off on the couch, as I was exhausted. I woke up 5 hours later and immediately stuck it in the fridge.

Veggies: summer squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, baby greens, freshly shredded ginger, red pepper, orange pepper, potatoes

Some of the seasonings: soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, rice vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, white and black pepper, cayenne, sesame seed oil, peanut oil, dry thyme, dry parsley, dry tarragon, worschester

It was luke-warm the last time I checked before dozing; I was waiting for it to cool just a bit more, grr.

EDIT: Thanks, guys! I'm feeling much better about this now! :0)

EDIT 2: Weird update, on the off-chance anyone is actually still reading this. One of the people I cooked the soup for, is my mother (63). I told her I was cooking it for her yesterday. I didn't mention I was also going to give some to a neighbor.

I decided to toss it, just in case, but would do it later, before I met up with my mom in the evening. Guess who took the soup from the fridge when I wasn't home?!

She gave some to her boss, a vegetarian doctor in her 40s,and an elderly acquaintance in his mid 80s.

So... feck me, I'm crossing my fingers. It was too late by the time I saw her text. They already ate it.

EDIT 3: I'm with my mom now, btw, it's 10:30 PM, and she isn't sick. I don't see the point in telling her, as it's most likely fine, and they can't un-eat it. I'll have to confess if anyone falls ill though. I'm pretty sure the guy in his 80s would have tossed it (she dropped some off) as I know this man, and he hates everything with spices in it.

Thank you!!

But I have to ask, on a scale of 1 to 10, how sure are you?? I'm betting your advice against 48 hours of profuse shitting and vomiting. Are you willing to put your advice up against some potential terrible karma??

For reference, 1 is " Yeah, if you dropped a piece of food on the floor, you should be fine as long as you brush off the mouse turds" and 10 is, "If you heat chicken to X degrees it will be safe to eat"

So I made soup (chicken drumsticks, veggies, broth) last night in my rice cooker. I let it boil for about 1.5 hours and then let it sit overnight in the rice cooker. Forgot about it in the morning, so it was sitting in the rice cooker all day, and then I reboiled it around 7 pm. I just put it into the fridge, and its been sitting in the rice cooker for about 24 hours (but boiled twice during this time). Do you think it is safe to eat the soup tomorrow, or should I sadly throw out the whole thing?

Update: Threw it out :( Sucks to lose a whole pot of delicious soup, but you all are right.. not worth the risk! Thanks everyone

I'm making chicken stock today and it will be simmering on the stove until I leave to go to a bar to watch the Bruins game at around 6:30 PM. I imagine I'll be home by 10:30 PM. I know that things aren't typically supposed to sit in the "danger zone" for more than two hours, but I also know that people (e.g. my parents) let things like soup sit on the stove for long periods of time without ill consequence.

What would you do? Try to quickly cool it down and put it in the fridge before leaving; somehow keep it over 140 degrees during those four hours (perhaps transferring it to a slow cooker on the warm setting?); or just put a lid on it and leave it out to let it slowly come to room temp, putting it away in the fridge upon returning home?

Well, first question, did you put it in the fridge between when you first posted and now? Because overnight, I'd be okay, a whole day on the counter, maybe not. But if all the broth cooked off, I'd be surprised if it was even worth saving. It's possible the noodles just absorbed a lot of the liquid; if you put in the fridge this morning, add a box of chicken stock and bring it to a boil and it would be safe enough for me, no guarantee it will taste as good, esp if the noodles got mushy.

But botulism? Even if you botulism spores somehow got into your Crock-Pot overnight, they require an anaerobic, low-salt, low-acid, low-sugar environment at ambient temperatures (for more than 8 hours) to germinate, and even then, the toxin they produce IS destroyed by boiling for 5 minutes. Botulism and salmonella don't just spontaneously appear, look up Pasteur to ease your mind

How long can soup sit out unrefrigerated?

Can you eat soup left out for 4 hours?