Food safety questions get sourced answers, not vibes. The short version sits below; each page has the detail and the citations.
The answers
- How long they last One week refrigerated, shell on or peeled, per USDA — and why the two-hour rule after cooking matters.
- Freezing Mostly don’t — whites turn rubbery. What survives freezing and what never does.
- Is this egg still good? The smell test, the slime test, and when “when in doubt, throw it out” genuinely applies.
- Reheating Hot water, not the microwave — a sealed reheated egg can burst. The safe method in two minutes.
The one-paragraph version
Refrigerate boiled eggs within two hours of cooking. They keep up to one week in the fridge, peeled or not — peeled ones just need a sealed container so they don’t dry out. Don’t freeze them; the white’s texture doesn’t survive it. Reheat in hot water rather than a microwave, because a sealed egg heated fast can burst. And an egg that smells sulphurous-wrong or feels slimy is done — no test overrides that.
Meal-prepping a batch?
Hard boiled at 11:00 stores best. The timer handles up to two dozen — the time never changes, only the return-to-boil wait.