How long doCream pieslast in the fridge once opened?

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.

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

Turning the range into a date

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

Is this window about safety or about taste?

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, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it still looks and smells fine.

Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

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 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.

Is that a long time?

Among the 52 items the USDA files under Baked Goods, this item ranks 46 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Quiche holds 5 days, Dairy filled eclairs holds 3 days. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 16% of them.

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 days in the fridge once opened
• Quichekeeps 3 days in the fridge once opened
• Cinnamon rollskeeps 1 day in the pantrybaked
• Doughnutskeeps 1 day sealed in the pantryup to 2 days in the fridge once opened
• Chiffon pies, chocolate, lemonkeeps 1 day in the fridge once opened
• Bagelkeeps 1 day in the pantryfresh baked

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 16 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, refrigerator after opening, and 8 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Retort pouches or boxes, Fruit, cut and Jars or pouches, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Retort pouches or boxes at 4 days.

• Retort pouches or boxes3 days in the fridge once opened
• Fruit, cut4 days in the fridge once opened
• Jars or pouches2 days in the fridge once opened
• Fruit3 days in the fridge once opened
• Soda2 days in the fridge once opened
• Pudding2 days in the fridge once opened
• Chiffon pies1 day in the fridge once opened
• Dinners2 days in the fridge once opened

The rest of the Bakery shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Bakery shelf together with 15 others, and 10 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Pastries at 14 months down to Macaroons at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Dairy filled eclairs, Quiche and Doughnuts, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 4 days rather than at the 3 days in the fridge once opened its own answer prints.

• Dairy filled eclairs3 days2 days in the fridge once opened
• Quiche5 days3 days in the fridge once opened
• Doughnuts2 days1 day sealed in the pantry
• Chiffon pies2 days1 day in the fridge once opened
• Bagel2 days1 day in the pantry
• Macaroons2 days1 day in the pantry
• Cheesecake7 days5 days in the fridge once opened
• Fruit pies1 week1 day in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 4 days, the Baked Goods aisle gives 41 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Commercial cakes and muffins at 10 days against this one's 4 days; after it come Herbs, Commercial bread products and Garlic. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 4 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Doughnuts and Chiffon pies among them.

• Commercial cakes and muffins10 days3 days sealed in the pantry
• Herbs10 days7 days sealed in the fridge
• Commercial bread products3 weeks14 days sealed in the pantry
• Garlic1 month1 month sealed in the pantry
• Cookies3 months2 months sealed in the pantry
• Bread3 months2 months in the fridge
• Flavored or herb mixes6 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Biscuit or pancake mix9 months9 months sealed in the pantry

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 205 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 1 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the source prints its binding figure in days, so the window at the top of this page is the source's own number untouched. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap. It is filed under Bakery inside Baked Goods, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.

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: 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.