How long does Homemade broth last in the fridge?
Turning the range into a date
Homemade broth keeps 3–4 days in the fridge. The window here is 4 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down.
- In the freezerUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you stored it
- In the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you stored it
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Here the freezer does not so much extend the answer as replace it. 4 days in the refrigerator becomes 3 months in the freezer: 22 times longer, and days turning into months. On the same shelf it sits 40 of 41, between Tomato sauce at 5 days and Aioli, homemade at 4 days. Homemade in the source list is this same food.
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.
- In the freezer2 months to 3 months
- In the fridge3 days to 4 days
Can you freeze homemade broth?
Yes. The USDA gives homemade broth 2–3 months in the freezer, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. A sealed jar or can does not need the freezer; leftovers from an opened one freeze better in a small airtight container.
How to tell if homemade broth has gone bad
Go by the date first: homemade broth keeps 3–4 days in the fridge. A bulging, leaking or badly dented can, or a jar whose lid has popped, goes out unopened; so does mold or fizzing in an opened one. Once opened, keep it in the fridge at 40 °F or below.
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 3 days to 4 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Broth, homemade 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 figure in the freezer here is 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 Broth, homemade past its 3 days to 4 days in the fridge 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
All 6 of the nearest items keep at least as long as this item, 4 days to 1 month against its 4 days: it is the bottom of its own cluster.
- Aioli, homemadekeeps exactly as long
- Tomato saucekeeps 3–5 days in the fridge once openedspaghetti, pizza
- Chicken broth/stock/consommé, commercially producedkeeps 3–4 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
- Vegetable stock/broth, commercially producedkeeps 3–4 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
- Duck fatkeeps 30 days in the fridge
- Frying oil, re-usedkeeps 1 month 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: Broth, homemade
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.