How long does Broccoli last in the fridge?
Turning the range into a date
Broccoli keeps 3–5 days in the fridge from purchase. The window here is 5 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down.
- In the freezerUse by10 months to 12 months after the day you bought it
- From purchase · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 5 days after the day you bought it
A short window, and what shortens it further
This item is one of the short-lived entries in the data: 5 days outside the freezer, position 66 of 89 in the Produce list. At that scale a day of delay is a large share of the whole window, which is why the figure is printed as a range rather than an average.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA rates this item cold or frozen and never at room temperature: no pantry figure exists for it, as for 222 of the 466 foods in the data that get no pantry time at all. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Vegetables.
- In the freezer10 months to 12 months
- From purchase · in the fridge3 days to 5 days
Can you freeze broccoli?
Yes. The USDA gives broccoli 10–12 months in the freezer from the day you buy it, 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 broccoli has gone bad
Go by the date first: broccoli keeps 3–5 days 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 3 days to 5 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Broccoli and broccoli raab (rapini) 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 Broccoli and broccoli raab (rapini) past its 3 days to 5 days 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.
Items that behave the same way
All 4 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 5 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
- Peaches, nectarines, plums, pears, sapotekeeps exactly as long
- Beans and peas, green, fava, lima, soybean, wax, snow, sugar snapkeeps exactly as long
- Brussels sproutskeeps exactly as long
- Bagged greens, leaf, spinach, lettuce, etc.keeps exactly as long
- Avocadoskeeps until ripe, then 3–4 days in the fridge
- Cherimoyakeeps until ripe, then 4 days in the fridge
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.
USDA index terms: Broccoli, broccoli raab, raab, rapini
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.