You opened the fridge, found the container, and now you are doing arithmetic you cannot check. Here is the trail a careful cook walks — the next seven searches, in order, each with the two-sentence answer and the query to run.
Cooked and raw run on completely different clocks. Most people use the cooked number for both.
Three to four days, counted from the day it was cooked — not the day you bought it. Past day four the risk climbs even if it looks and smells fine.
One to two days, which surprises people who assume raw keeps longer than cooked. If you cannot cook it by day two, freeze it on day one.
Raw ground beef is one to two days — shorter than steak, because grinding spreads surface bacteria through the whole batch. Once cooked, it joins the three-to-four-day group.
Fridge time is not the only time that counts, and the other clock runs much faster.
Two hours at room temperature, total, across the whole life of the food — and one hour if the room is above 90°F (32°C). That time is spent, not reset, when the food goes back in the fridge.
One week in the shell, and the shell is doing real work — peeled eggs drop to about two days. Store them unpeeled and peel as you eat.
How to buy more time, and how to decide when there is none left.
Cooked chicken holds two to six months and raw parts about nine months before quality drops — frozen food stays safe indefinitely at 0°F, it just stops tasting like anything. Freeze on the first day, not the last.
Grey or greenish colour, a sour smell, and a slimy film are all real signals — but the bacteria that make people sick often leave no smell, taste, or look at all. The date is more reliable than your nose.
These are USDA cold-storage timings for a fridge running at or below 40°F (4°C). They are guidance, not a guarantee — when food has been in a warm room, thawed on the counter, or you simply cannot remember, throw it out.
You just walked 7 searches for “how long is cooked chicken good in the fridge”. The extension maps the trail right on your results page — for anything you search, not just the journeys we’ve written.