Can you eat raw pepperoni?

Yes, you can eat raw pepperoni but it’s always not advisable to eat it cold because it can harbor bacteria.

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If you prefer eating it cold, make sure it’s wrapped in the refrigerator first before consumption. Pepperoni is a type of salami. It’s made from cured pork and beef mixed with spices such as garlic powder, paprika, and fennel seed. It is often spicy, but not always.

The meat mixture is formed into slender sticks which are then cut and packaged in waxed paper or plastic. At this point, pepperoni is shelf-stable. It must be kept cool or it will go bad quickly.

The other concern is that can you eat pepperoni without cooking? Because of course, it has to be cooked through first before consumption to ensure that all bacteria are destroyed and that no one gets sick from eating it.

If you buy a package of pepperoni and keep it in the fridge, chances are that the slices won’t spoil before you eat them all. You can refrigerate raw pepperoni as long as it’s tightly wrapped to prevent it from drying out.

If you buy pepperoni with cheese already on it, go one step further and keep this in the fridge too. Cheese is a perfect medium for bacteria to grow if it stays at room temperature for more than a few hours.

You can eat cold or heated pepperoni, but the meat will be slightly tougher and drier. If you heat it, microwave on a paper towel to make sure the slices don’t get soggy from condensation dripping off them onto the plate.

Remember that pepperoni is cured and cooked, so all of the bacteria in the meat have been killed by heat. The cooked spice mixture does not go through a process to kill bacteria, so there could still be some lurking in the meat. If you have a cold cut allergy, pepperoni is definitely off-limits for you.

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