How long does Balsamic vinegar last in the fridge once opened?

Turning the range into a date

Balsamic vinegar keeps 18 months in the fridge once opened. 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, 2 rows in all.

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by3 years to 5 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by18 months after the day you opened it

Built to sit on a shelf

This item is built to sit. It keeps 5 years outside the freezer. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 99% of them. It is long enough that the date it went into storage matters more than anything you can judge by looking at it. On the same shelf it sits 1 of 41, between Gravy, jars and cans at 5 years and Anchovies, canned at 5 years.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data.

• Unopened · in the pantry3 years to 5 years
• Once opened · in the fridge18 months

Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?

The answer at the top of this page reads 18 months in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Balsamic vinegar is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. Past it, whether it has gone bad is yours to judge by look and smell: this window rates quality, not the day it turns hazardous.

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 Balsamic vinegar past its 18 months in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A jar or can that is bulging, leaking or rusted goes out unopened, and so does an opened one with mold at the rim or a sour, fizzing smell.

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
• Anchovies, cannedkeeps 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

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 27 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Meat products, Canned chicken and Gravy, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.

• Meat products3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Canned chicken3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Gravy1 day in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Nutrition supplement drinks2 days in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce1 month in the fridge once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Refried beans2 days in the fridge once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate syrup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Thai red curry paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry

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, Anchovies 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
• Anchovies5 years3 days 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. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

• 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 669 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 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. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.

Where these numbers come from

How long does this food keep in the refrigerator, in the freezer, in the pantry? Can you freeze it, and how much of its shelf life is left once the package is open? Every answer on this page is the USDA’s own published figure, one of the 9 it keeps per food, and never an estimate of ours.

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: balsamic, vinegar

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.