How long do Cream pies last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Cream pies keep 3–4 days in the fridge once opened. Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 1 row in all.
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you opened it
Why the freezer is not an option here
The USDA marks the freezer as not recommended for this item, so the whole answer is a single field: 3 days to 4 days in the refrigerator after opening. It is not a warning: food held at 0 °F stays safe, so a not-recommended is a verdict on what would come out of the freezer. On the same shelf it sits 46 of 52, between Quiche at 5 days and Dairy filled eclairs at 3 days.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The refrigerator is the only place the USDA gives this item a storage time, as it does for 64 of the 466 foods the USDA lists. Within Baked Goods it is filed under Bakery.
- In the freezernot recommended
- Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days
Can you freeze cream pies?
The USDA does not recommend freezing cream pies. It is not a safety warning, since food held at 0 °F stays safe, but they come back changed. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.
How to tell if cream pies have gone bad
Go by the date first: cream pies keep 3–4 days in the fridge once opened. A sour or off smell, mold, slime or an odd color mean it goes out. The bacteria that make people sick change none of these, so past its window it goes out even if it seems fine. Never taste to test.
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 4 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: it 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.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts it past its 3 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened 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. 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
The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 2 days to 5 days and bracketing its 4 days.
- Dairy filled eclairskeeps 2–3 days in the fridge once opened
- Quichekeeps 3–5 days in the fridge once opened
- Cinnamon rollskeeps 1–3 days in the pantrybaked
- Doughnutskeeps 1–2 days sealed in the pantryup to 2 days in the fridge once opened
- Chiffon pies, chocolate, lemonkeeps 1–2 days in the fridge once opened
- Bagelkeeps 1–2 days in the pantryfresh baked
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: banana, banana cream, butterscotch, coconut, coconut cream, cream, pie, Pies
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.