How long doesCheeselast?

The USDA rates 5 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 5 separate entries under this name — hard such as cheddar, swiss, block parmesan, parmesan; shredded or grated, shredded; cheddar, mozzarella, etc., processed slices and soft such as brie, bel paese, goat — and they do not keep for the same time: Cheese, soft such as brie, bel paese, goat holds 1 week to 2 weeks outside the freezer, Cheese, parmesan; shredded or grated holds 12 months.

The shortest of these, Cheese, soft such as brie, bel paese, goat at 2 weeks, is a safety limit, and past it the food goes out untasted.

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. The source also indexes it as cheddar, swiss, parmesan and shredded.

Cheese, hard such as cheddar, swiss, block parmesan

• In the freezer6 months
• Unopened · in the fridge6 months
• Once opened · in the fridge3 weeks to 4 weeks

Cheese, parmesan; shredded or grated

• In the freezernot recommended
• Unopened · in the fridge12 months

Cheese, shredded; cheddar, mozzarella, etc.

• In the freezer3 months to 4 months
• Unopened · in the fridge1 month

Cheese, processed slices

• In the freezernot recommended
• Unopened · in the fridge3 weeks to 4 weeks

Cheese, soft such as brie, bel paese, goat

• In the freezer6 months
• Unopened · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 9 rows across the 5 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Cheese, hard such as cheddar, swiss, block parmesan

• In the freezerUse by6 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by6 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 weeks to 4 weeks after the day you opened it

Cheese, parmesan; shredded or grated

• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by12 months after the day you bought it

Cheese, shredded; cheddar, mozzarella, etc.

• In the freezerUse by3 months to 4 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 month after the day you bought it

Cheese, processed slices

• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 weeks to 4 weeks after the day you bought it

Cheese, soft such as brie, bel paese, goat

• In the freezerUse by6 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you bought it

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the shortest window under this name — it at 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge — has run out, 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.

What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: it is an animal food, or made with one. 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 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.

Items that behave the same way

Cheese carries no single window to compare — its 5 kinds each keep their own — so these 6 are simply what the USDA rates on the same shelf, shortest first: Pudding at 2 days through Soy milk at 10 days.

• Puddingkeeps 2 days in the fridge once opened
• Egg disheskeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Egg substituteskeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Eggnog, commercialkeeps 3 days sealed in the fridge
• Kefir, fermented milkkeeps 1 day in the fridge once openedup to 1 week sealed in the fridge
• Soy milkkeeps 7 days in the fridge once opened

Products the USDA rates in the same places

5 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer from the day of purchase, refrigerator from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Hot dogs, Chicken and Turkey. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. The longest-keeping of them is Hot dogs at 2 weeks.

• Hot dogs1 week in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Chicken1 day sealed in the fridgewhole
• Turkey1 day sealed in the fridgewhole
• Turkey bacon7 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Salami3 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Egg substitutes3 days in the fridge
• Butter1 month sealed in the fridge
• Buttermilk1 week sealed in the fridge

The record this page is built from

This name is one of the crowded ones in the file: 5 rows carry it, starting at record 3, out of 661 rows in the snapshot altogether. All 5 are printed on this page as separate kinds, because a page that merged their windows into one figure would be publishing a number the USDA never did. No one of the 5 is the kind the plain name means, so this page prints no single figure: the kinds are listed with their own windows and you pick yours.

Where these numbers come from

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: bel paese, brie, cheddar, goat, grated, mozzarella, parmesan, processed slices, shredded, slice, slices, swiss

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.