How Long Does Ceviche Last? How To Tell If Ceviche Goes Bad?

Ceviche is a popular Latin American dish made with fresh seafood or raw fish mixed with spices, fresh herbs, kosher salt, and most importantly, fresh lime juice.

How Long Does Ceviche Last?

Ceviche’s shelf life depends on storage conditions, and it’s difficult to say exactly how long it will be good for. First, let’s check the first condition: store in the fridge.

1. In the fridge

How long is ceviche good for in the fridge depends on many factors, but basically, it will be good for about two days. One of the main reasons is that, compared to other types of raw meat, raw fish has a much faster spoilage rate.. 

If you eat rotten white fish, it can cause severe digestive diseases such as stomach aches, food poisoning. Therefore, it is important to stick to the two days principle to protect your health.

By keeping ceviche in the refrigerator, you have significantly increased the shelf life of the dish. This is because the low temperature and the humidity control device in the refrigerator will help minimize the production of rotting bacteria. Moreover, your ceviche dish will also not be approached by animals such as insects, affecting the food quality.

However, because the refrigerator can only help slow down the growth of bacteria, not kill them all, your ceviche will still go bad after a few days. Also, keeping food in the refrigerator for too long can cause degradation and produce harmful toxins for the body. Therefore, if you do not use all of the ceviches in a couple of days, it’s time to throw them away.

Regretting and reusing these foods can bring many risks of dangerous diseases. Furthermore, do not defrost the seafood dish too many times because the total nutritional content of the fresh fish will decrease by 10-20% after each time.

How long does ceviche last in the fridge? Keep in mind: ONLY 2 DAYS TOP.

2. At room temperature

The ideal amount of time you can leave ceviche at room temperature is only about 1 to 2 hours.

Although raw seafood is rich in natural vitamins and minerals such as omega 3 fatty acids (especially DHA), vitamin A (improves vision), vitamin D, and protein, it is also an excellent shelter for countless microorganisms, like larvae, helminth eggs. So, even if the ceviche has been treated to absorb the acids from the food, spoilage is inevitable.

Normally, the average room temperature is about 25 degrees Celsius. According to experts at the US FDA, this is the temperature range where food decay is most active. It only takes 20 minutes for bacteria to double and ruin your ceviche.

Furthermore, bacteria exist everywhere in the environment, including Staphylococcus aureus, salmonella enteritidis, E. coli, Campylobacter, clostridium perfringens. They can all infect food, causing users to be poisoned or infected.

Does Ceviche Go Bad? How To Tell If Ceviche Has Gone Bad?

Fortunately, it is easy to tell if ceviche leftovers are still edible. Therefore, you can be reassured that you will not get food poisoning.

The first and easiest way to answer the question: is ceviche safe to eat is to smell. Ceviche has a cool smell of spices marinated with seasoning, rosemary substitute, and lemon. 

However, when spoiled, the freshwater fish for ceviche will have a sour smell like sour buttermilk. This is because the bacteria in the fish break down the chemicals in the food and form smelly gases. As soon as you notice this sign, it would help if you got rid of ceviche right away.

Another way to know it is safe to eat ceviche or not is to look and touch. As soon as it is spoiled, on the surface of your raw fish dish will appear layers of scum. 

This is a sign of molds that have begun to appear. You need to understand that molds are microscopic microorganisms that must be seen with a microscope. 

Yet, you can see them with the naked eye on the dish, proving that the amount of mold is already a lot. Furthermore, touch the fish’s surface. If you find that there is no more elasticity, it is time to throw this ceviche away.

How to Preserve Ceviche

Put it in an air-tight container

Food storage boxes help extend the shelf life of food and keep food from drying out, spreading, and absorbing odors. 

In addition, the food container also helps to organize the kitchen space, refrigerator space is more organized and neat, making the living space and dining space of you and your family more convenient and modern.

Storing food in reusable food airtight containers is one of the best ways to reduce the amount of plastic wrap and styrofoam waste entering the environment.

Use vacuum airbag 

The theoretical vacuum environment is an environment that does not contain any matter inside it, including oxygen, carbon dioxide, dust, bacteria. Therefore, this is the perfect condition for storing perishable foods like ceviche.

By using a vacuum bag, you have created a relative vacuum by drawing all the air around the food surface. Thereafter, close the airbag, and this way will help prolong the preservation of fresh food 3-5 times longer than conventional food preservation methods. In addition, this method will also retain the maximum number of nutrients and original flavor in the food.