How Long Do Cooked Eggs Last?

Cooked eggs keep in the fridge for up to about a week, whether they are hard-boiled, scrambled or in an omelette, as long as they were chilled promptly after cooking. Hard-boiled eggs last longest, and they keep best left in their shells until you want them, because the shell protects them from drying out and picking up fridge smells.

The working numbers

• Hard-boiled eggs in their shells: up to a week. Cool them, refrigerate them, and leave the shell on until you eat them. That is the tidiest way to store them.
• Peeled hard-boiled eggs: 2 to 3 days. Once the shell is off, the egg dries and takes on flavours faster. Keep peeled eggs in a covered container, ideally under a splash of water or a damp piece of kitchen paper, and eat them sooner.
• Scrambled eggs, omelettes and cooked egg dishes: 3 to 4 days. These follow the ordinary cooked-leftovers rule. Chill them within a couple of hours and reheat once, until piping hot.

The clock starts when the eggs are cooked, not when you finally get round to labelling the tub. Get cooked eggs into the fridge promptly rather than leaving them on the side to cool for hours.

Why the shell matters

An unpeeled hard-boiled egg is essentially sealed. The shell keeps moisture in and other flavours out, which is why a shell-on egg lasts roughly twice as long as a peeled one. If you are boiling a batch for the week, boil them, cool them, and store them whole. Peel each one only when you are about to eat it.

How to tell if a cooked egg has gone off

Trust your nose. A cooked egg that has turned smells distinctly sulphurous or sour the moment you break it open, and that smell is the answer, so bin it. A grey-green ring around a hard-boiled yolk, by contrast, is harmless: it is just a reaction from overcooking, not a sign of spoilage. Any sliminess, off smell or mould on a cooked egg dish means the bin.

What I actually do

I batch-boil eggs on a Sunday for the week, and the one habit that makes it work is leaving them in the shell until the moment I want one. A bowl of shell-on boiled eggs in the fridge is honestly one of the most useful things I keep, for lunchboxes, a quick protein on a salad, or halved on toast when I cannot be bothered to cook. Peeled, they dry out and start tasting of fridge within a couple of days. In the shell, they coast to the end of the week.

For scrambled eggs and omelettes I am less relaxed, and I treat them like any cooked leftover: cooled fast, in the fridge inside the hour, eaten within 3 to 4 days, reheated once and piping hot. Reheated egg can go rubbery, so I actually prefer to cook the amount I will eat and skip the leftover entirely where I can. When I do keep an egg dish, a quiche or a frittata, it goes in a covered container and I trust the date on the lid over my memory.

The one thing I want to flag honestly: eggs left out matter more than people think. A cooked egg sitting on the side after brunch for a few hours is not a saveable leftover, however tempting, because it has spent that time in the warm zone where bacteria multiply. And if you are cooking for someone pregnant, very young, elderly or unwell, lean firmly cautious, because runny or lightly cooked eggs and elderly leftovers are exactly where a food-safety slip lands hardest. When in doubt, throw it out.

Quick answers

• How long do hard-boiled eggs last? About a week in the shell in the fridge, 2 to 3 days once peeled.
• Can you leave cooked eggs out overnight? No. Cooked eggs left at room temperature for more than a couple of hours should be thrown away.
• Can you freeze cooked eggs? Whole hard-boiled eggs freeze poorly and turn rubbery, so freezing is better for raw beaten eggs. See can you freeze eggs for the method.

For where cooked eggs sit alongside everything else in the fridge, and the storage habits that make the times above hold, see how long food lasts in the fridge. If you want to check a raw egg is still good, how to tell if eggs are still good has the float test.