How long doCream sauceslast in the pantry?

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 1 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry from the day of purchase is what it rates. The other 8 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way.

• Unopened · in the pantry6 months to 12 months

Turning the range into a date

Counting 12 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you bought it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 6 months to 12 months in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Cream sauces, milk solids keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

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 Cream sauces, milk solids past its 6 months to 12 months in the pantry 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 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?

3 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 12 months, so they all share place 26 of 41 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 12 months to 1 year — a tight cluster, and this item at 12 months is inside it.

• Horseradish, in jarkeeps exactly as long
• Salad dressings, commercial, bottledkeeps exactly as long
• Barbecue saucekeeps 4 months in the fridge once openedbottled · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Ketchup, cocktail, or chili saucekeeps 6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Salsakeeps 1 month in the fridge once openedpicante and taco sauces · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Worcestershire saucekeeps 1 year sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 24 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase, 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 Grits, Worcestershire sauce and Bacon bits, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the 8 shown, 5 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Worcestershire sauce at 1 year.

• Grits12 months sealed in the pantry
• Worcestershire sauce1 year sealed in the pantry
• Bacon bits1 year sealed in the pantry
• Canola oil1 year sealed in the pantry
• Sunflower oil1 year sealed in the pantry
• Grapeseed oil1 year sealed in the pantry
• Biscuit or pancake mix9 months sealed in the pantry
• Graham cracker/animal cracker6 months sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf together with 40 others, and 25 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Gravy at 5 years down to Aioli at 4 days. Nearest this product by window are Horseradish, Salad dressings and Barbecue sauce, 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 12 months rather than at the 6 months sealed in the pantry its own answer prints.

• Horseradish12 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Salad dressings12 months1 month in the fridge once opened
• Barbecue sauce1 year4 months in the fridge once opened
• Chutney1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
• Ketchup1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
• Marinades1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
• Pickles1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
• Salsa1 year1 month in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 12 months, the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods aisle gives 15 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Black bean sauce at 24 months against this one's 12 months; after it come Oyster sauce, Hoisin sauce and Dry gravy mixes. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 13 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Mayonnaise and Pesto among them.

• Black bean sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Oyster sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Hoisin sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
• Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustard2 years1 year in the fridge once opened
• Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Vinegar2 years2 years sealed in the pantry

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 342 — 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 binding figure on it is printed by the source in months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.

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: cream, Cream sauces, milk, milk solids, sauce, sauces, solid, solids

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.