How long does Cranberry sauce last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Cranberry sauce (canned) keeps 1–2 weeks in the fridge once opened. Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 3 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Cranberry sauce, canned
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you opened it
Cranberry sauce, homemade
- In the fridgeUse by7 days to 10 days after the day you stored it
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — canned and homemade — and they do not keep for the same time: Cranberry sauce, homemade holds 7 days to 10 days outside the freezer, Cranberry sauce, canned holds 2 years.
What opening the package actually costs
Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 2 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 2 weeks open in the fridge, the same food measured in weeks instead of years, a drop of 52 times. On the same shelf it sits 6 of 41, between Thai red curry paste at 2 years and Black bean sauce at 24 months. Canned and homemade are the same food in the source list.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item 3 storage times across the pantry and the refrigerator and none for the freezer, though it does attach a freezing note: a note is not a published figure. The source also indexes it as canned and homemade.
Cranberry sauce, canned
- Unopened · in the pantry2 years
- Once opened · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks
Cranberry sauce, homemade
- In the fridge7 days to 10 days
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 2 handling notes to this item, reproduced below word for word. None of them is a storage time: they qualify the figures above rather than replacing them. 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.
Cranberry sauce, canned, in the freezer. It is not recommend freezing cranberry sauce, as after thawing, it may become too watery.
Cranberry sauce, homemade, in the freezer. It is not recommend freezing cranberry sauce, as after thawing, it may become too watery.
Can you freeze cranberry sauce?
The USDA prints no freezer time for cranberry sauce. Frozen at 0 °F any food stays safe; whether it is still good after thawing is a matter of quality. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.
How to tell if cranberry sauce has gone bad
Go by the date first: cranberry sauce keeps 1–2 weeks in the fridge once opened. 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 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Cranberry sauce, canned 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.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Cranberry sauce, canned past its 1 week to 2 weeks 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 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 5 of the 6 items nearest Cranberry sauce, canned keep exactly as long as it does, 2 years, 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 Cranberry sauce, canned, 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: canned, homemade, sauce
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.