Spoiled Ground Beef: How to Identify and Prevent It

• Raw or cooked ground beef has gone bad if it smells funky, changes color, and/or feels slimy.
• Don’t cook with ground beef that’s more than 3 days past its sell-by date.
• Store raw and cooked beef in the fridge to keep it as fresh as possible. If you can’t cook or eat it right away, freeze it for future use.
• Cook ground beef to an internal temperature of 160 °F (71 °C) to prevent the spread of food-borne illnesses.

Signs of Spoiled Ground Beef

The beef has turned completely gray or brown. Raw beef is still safe to eat if the inner section is grey and the outer section is red—prepackaged ground beef develops a brown color on the inside because oxygen is not able to reach the center. However, the beef definitely is spoiled if the topmost layer turns brown/grey (as well as the center portion). Cooked ground beef sometimes gets a greenish tone when it goes bad.

The beef has a sour smell. Like many foods, ground beef starts to smell sour and disgusting when it’s no longer safe to eat. Before you start cooking, open up the package and take a quick sniff—if you don’t smell anything weird or off-putting, you’re good to go! Cooked beef also smells sour and foul when it’s no longer good to eat.

The beef feels slimy to the touch. Squeeze the meat in your fingers to feel its consistency. Fresh meat breaks apart in your hands easily and separate into chunks—if it has a slimy consistency, the beef is no longer safe to eat. Cooked beef also feels slimy to the touch after it goes bad. It might also be on the mushy side. Always wash your hands before and after you handle raw beef so you don’t spread bacteria or contaminate surfaces.

How long is raw ground beef good for in the fridge?

Raw ground beef is safe to use if it’s less than 3 days past its sell-by date. Generally speaking, raw ground beef is safe to use for around 3 days after the recommended sell-by date—but it’s still important to inspect your beef before you start cooking with it. Check the calendar to determine how many days have passed since you bought it and throw it away if it’s old. Let’s say you left raw ground beef in the fridge for 7 days—if the meat still wasn’t 3 days past its sell-by date (or showed any signs of spoilage), it would still be safe to eat.

Thawed ground beef can chill in the refrigerator for 1-2 days. Defrosted ground beef doesn’t have a super long shelf life, so try to use it within a couple of days after thawing it out. If you decide not to use your beef, refreeze it within that 48-hour period.

Storage & Cooking Best Practices

Store cooked and uncooked ground beef in the fridge at or below 40 °F (4 °C). If you plan to cook raw ground beef soon, store it in your refrigerator. Any meat left out at room temperature starts harboring harmful bacteria colonies within 2 hours. As a general rule of thumb, never leave meat out for longer than 2 hours at room temperature, or for more than 1 hour if it is above 90 °F (32 °C). Freeze any beef if you don’t plan on cooking or eating it right away.

Freeze both uncooked and cooked ground beef for up to 4 months. Transfer the ground beef into a freezer-safe bag and label it with the current date. Then, go over the surface of the bag with a rolling pin to flatten out the ground meat (so it’s easier to thaw in the future). Seal up the bag before freezing it. Frozen beef technically doesn’t go bad, but it’ll start to taste less fresh if you freeze it for longer than 4 months.

Defrost the frozen beef in the fridge or in a sink filled with cold water. Transfer the frozen beef to the fridge 1 to 2 days before you cook with it so the meat thaws completely. To thaw the beef in the sink, fill it up with cold water and submerge the beef. Change the water every 30 minutes until it’s completely defrosted. Beef thawed with water needs to be cooked right away, while beef defrosted in the refrigerator can be refrozen within 24-48 hours. Never leave the meat to thaw at room temperature, and make sure that it isn’t out for more than 2 hours (or 1 hour in really hot conditions). Beef can be thawed in the microwave but it needs to be cooked right after it’s finished thawing to avoid any contamination.

Cook ground beef to 160 °F (71 °C) before storing or eating it. The only way to kill the natural bacteria in your beef is to cook it all the way through to a piping hot temperature of 160 °F (71 °C). Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the meat while you’re cooking it.

Toss out any beef that’s recalled by the manufacturer. Even if there’s a low chance that your beef is actually affected in the recall, you don’t want to risk giving yourself (or your family members and roommates) food poisoning. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to see if you can return the food to the store and get your money back (or if you need to throw it out). Seal away the beef in several bags before you toss it out (especially if you opened the package already). You don’t want animals rooting around in your trash and snacking on recalled meat!

Can I get sick from bad ground beef?

Yes, you can definitely get sick from eating bad ground beef. Spoiled meat can have dangerous bacteria in it, which can lead to food poisoning. Raw beef in particular can host a wide variety of harmful, illness-causing bacteria, including E. coli, salmonella, Listeria, staphylococcus aureus, and more. With all of these risk factors, it’s never a good idea to cook with or eat spoiled ground beef.