How long does Bacon last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Bacon keeps 1 week in the fridge once opened. Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 7 rows across the 3 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Bacon
- In the freezerUse by1 month after the day you bought it
- From purchase · in the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you opened it
Bacon, fully cooked
- From purchase · in the pantryUse by6 months after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by5 days to 14 days after the day you opened it
Bacon, uncured
- In the freezerUse by3 weeks to 4 weeks after the day you stored it
- In the fridgeUse by4 days to 7 days after the day you stored it
The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately
Bacon, uncured keeps 4 days, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — USDA record 79, fully cooked and uncured — and they do not keep for the same time: Bacon holds 1 week outside the freezer, Bacon, fully cooked holds 6 months.
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Freezing does not just add time to this item, it changes the unit the answer is written in: 1 week in the refrigerator against 1 month in the freezer, 4.3 times longer, months in place of weeks. On the same shelf it sits 6 of 19, between Pork roll at 7 days and Corned beef, in pouch with pickling juices at 7 days. Fully cooked, cooked and uncured bacon are the same food in the source list.
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 fully cooked, cooked, uncured and nitrite-free.
Bacon
- In the freezer1 month
- From purchase · in the fridge1 week
- Once opened · in the fridge1 week
Bacon, fully cooked
- From purchase · in the pantry6 months
- Once opened · in the fridge5 days to 14 days
Bacon, uncured
- In the freezer3 weeks to 4 weeks
- In the fridge4 days to 7 days
Can you freeze bacon?
Yes. The USDA gives bacon 1 month in the freezer from the day you buy it, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. Cured and sliced meats change texture once frozen, and the salt in them speeds up rancidity, so the freezer is for weeks, not for keeping.
How to tell if bacon has gone bad
Go by the date first: bacon keeps 1 week in the fridge once opened. Look for a slimy film, a sour smell or mold. A deli package past its window goes out even if it looks fine: listeria grows in the cold without changing how meat looks.
Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety FDA: are you storing food safely FoodSafety.gov: the FoodKeeper app.
Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 week in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Bacon is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, it is not safe to eat: throw it out without tasting, because bacteria build up while food still looks and smells fine.
The figures in the freezer, in the pantry and in the freezer 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.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Bacon past its 1 week 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 whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 3 days to 7 days against the 1 week of Bacon, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
- Pork rollkeeps exactly as long
- Corned beef, in pouch with pickling juiceskeeps exactly as long
- Venison, round, rump, loin, or rib roastkeeps 3–5 days in the fridge
- Retort pouches or boxeskeeps 3–4 days in the fridge once opened
- Hamkeeps 3–4 days in the fridgefully cooked, slices, half, or spiral cut
- Bratwurstkeeps 2–3 days in the fridgefresh
Where these numbers come from
Every storage time on this page is the USDA’s own published figure from the FoodKeeper data, one of the 9 it keeps per food, reproduced unchanged and never an estimate of ours. Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, each kind keeps its own windows, and the page names the kind its answer is for. The dates and multipliers are ours, computed from those ranges.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page. How the site is built is on the method page.
Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Bacon, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in.
USDA index terms: cooked, fully cooked, natural, natural bacon, nitrite, nitrite-free, nitrite-free bacon, uncured, uncured bacon
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.