How long doAnchovieslast in the fridge once opened?

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 5 years in the pantry; once open it holds 4 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of years, a drop of 456 times.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. The source also indexes it as anchovy.

• In the freezer2 months
• In the pantry5 years
• Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

In the freezer. Remove from can before freezing.

Turning the range into a date

Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 3 rows in all.

• In the freezerUse by2 months after the day you stored it
• In the pantryUse by5 years after the day you stored it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 3 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Anchovies, canned is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it still looks and smells fine.

The figures in the freezer and in the pantry here are a quality window. The same page carries windows of more than one kind, so which sentence applies depends on which row you are reading, not on the food. Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Anchovies, canned past its 3 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened window, or the container sat out on the counter overnight. Throw the container out without tasting it, and count any hours it already spent out of the refrigerator as part of that window rather than on top of it.

The USDA's limit for perishable food standing at room temperature is 2 hours, or 1 hour when the kitchen is above 90 °F, and that clock runs whatever the storage figure says. Freezing stops the clock but does not turn it back: food already past its window is not rescued by putting it in the freezer. The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

3 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 5 years, so they all share place 1 of 41 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 years to 5 years against the 5 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Gravy, jars and canskeeps exactly as long
• Soy sauce or teriyaki saucekeeps 1 month in the fridge once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Relishkeeps 30 months sealed in the pantry
• Dry gravy mixeskeeps 1 day in the fridgeup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Honeykeeps 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustardkeeps 1 year in the fridge once opened

Products the USDA rates in the same places

Only 3 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, freezer, pantry and refrigerator after opening: Fruit pies, Quiche and Pies. That is 3 products out of 466, which makes this a rare shape of record rather than a common one, and it is worth knowing that the comparison below is drawn from a very small group. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Fruit pies at 1 week.

• Fruit pies1 day in the pantryup to 1 week in the fridge once opened
• Quiche3 days in the fridge once opened
• Pies3 kinds2 hours to 1 week

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Mustard1 year in the fridge once opened
• Salsa1 month in the fridge once openedpicante and taco sauces · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Barbecue sauce4 months in the fridge once openedbottled · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Pesto3 days in the fridge once openedup to 6 months sealed in the fridge
• Beef broth/stock/consommé3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge

The rest of the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf

Nothing else on the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf keeps longer outside the freezer than this one. The other 40 products there run down from Gravy at 5 years to Aioli at 4 days, and the ones nearest this product by window are Gravy, Balsamic vinegar and Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce. That makes this page the top of its own shelf rather than a middle entry. Across the whole of Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods the same product ranks 1 of 41. The middle of the shelf is Pickles, at 1 year.

• Gravy5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Balsamic vinegar5 years18 months in the fridge once opened
• Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce3 years1 month in the fridge once opened
• Relish30 months30 months sealed in the pantry
• Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
• Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustard2 years1 year in the fridge once opened
• Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 37 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Relish, Dry gravy mixes and Honey. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Freezing this one instead would reach 2 months, which the comparison above leaves out on purpose.

• Relish30 months30 months sealed in the pantry
• Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
• Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustard2 years1 year in the fridge once opened
• Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Vinegar2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Thai red curry paste2 years5 days in the fridge once opened
• Cranberry sauce2 years1 week in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 673 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in years, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. The same record answers to anchovy in the source's own index.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: anchovies, anchovy, canned anchovies

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.