How long do Beets last in the fridge?
Turning the range into a date
Beets keep 1–2 weeks in the fridge from purchase. Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 5 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Beets
- In the freezerUse by6 months to 8 months after the day you bought it
- From purchase · in the pantryUse by1 day after the day you bought it
- From purchase · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you bought it
Beets, pickled
- In the pantryUse by1 year after the day you stored it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you opened it
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — USDA record 274 and pickled — and they do not keep for the same time: Beets holds 1 week to 2 weeks outside the freezer, Beets, pickled holds 1 year. 1 of the 2 carry a freezer figure.
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: 2 weeks in the refrigerator against 8 months in the freezer, 17 times longer, months in place of weeks. On the same shelf it sits 30 of 89, between Bamboo shoots at 2 weeks and Cabbage at 2 weeks. Pickled beets and pickled 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 pickled.
Beets
- In the freezer6 months to 8 months
- From purchase · in the pantry1 day
- From purchase · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks
Beets, pickled
- In the pantry1 year
- Once opened · in the fridge1 month to 2 months
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.
Beets, pickled, in the refrigerator. Refrigerate after opening.
Can you freeze beets?
Yes. The USDA gives beets 6–8 months in the freezer from the day you buy them, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. Most produce goes soft when thawed, so frozen it suits cooking, smoothies and sauces rather than eating raw.
How to tell if beets have gone bad
Go by the date first: beets keep 1–2 weeks in the fridge. Mold, slime, a sour smell or soft dark spots mean it goes out; firm produce can be saved by cutting 1 inch around a small moldy spot, soft produce cannot. Refrigerate cut or peeled produce within 2 hours.
Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety USDA FSIS: molds on food 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 to 2 weeks in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Beets is raw and whole. 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.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Beets past its 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.
The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Two places, and one of them is the wrong one
The USDA rates two places for Beets in one state and they disagree: 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge against 1 day in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.
Items that behave the same way
All 6 of the 6 items nearest Beets keep exactly as long as it does, 2 weeks, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
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 Beets, 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: pickled, pickled beets
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.