Do You Really Need to Chill Your Leftover Pizza?
After you have prepared food, it needs to be put in the refrigerator. Right? So what about yesterday’s pizza that’s still in the box on the kitchen table? Good news: A food safety expert tells us that a cheese pizza cooked throughout the day is “low risk.”
Now he cannot guarantee that it will not kill you. But Benjamin Chapman , a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University, says people don’t get sick from uncooled pizza so often that it becomes a public health concern.
Why not? “It all comes down to water activity ,” Chapman says. Bread and baked cheese are too dry to harm germs. There is little moisture in tomato sauce, but its acidity is likely to inhibit bacterial growth.
However, the fillings change the calculation. If you order a pizza with nice juicy diced tomatoes on top, put it in the refrigerator. I asked Chapman about other fillings from juicy to dry. Pepperoni is good (it’s often sold at room temperature anyway), but what about green peppers? Buffalo chicken? They are okay as long as they bake enough water. So how do you average homemade pizza know if this is the case? Bad news: “You can’t.”
So, you’re on your own to make a decision, but it looks like plain pizza and pepperoni pizza aren’t likely to kill you. Good luck if you decide to take the risk with the rest.