KeepsUntilSearch My fridgeDairy Products & Eggs · USDA FoodKeeper

How long does Ghee last in the fridge?

In the fridge

Use by1 year to 2 years

Counted from the day you stored it

Quality window · past it, judge it yourself

How this date is worked out

From KeepsUntilIt is past the dateWhat to do when the window has run out, and when tasting is not a test Where these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you Every food on the siteOne page, every product, longest first

Turning the range into a date

Ghee keeps 1–2 years in the fridge. Counting 2 years forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.

In the pantryUse by6 months to 8 months after the day you stored it
In the fridgeUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you stored it

3×

What the pantry costs against the refrigerator730 days in the fridge ÷ 240 days in the pantry

Built to sit on a shelf

This item is built to sit. It keeps 2 years outside the freezer. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 99% of them. It is long enough that the date it went into storage matters more than anything you can judge by looking at it. On the same shelf it sits 2 of 31, between Nacho cheese, store bought at 2 years and Margarine at 6 months.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The source also indexes it as clarified butter, clarified and butter.

In the pantry6 months to 8 months
In the fridge1 year to 2 years

Can you freeze ghee?

The USDA prints no freezer time for ghee. 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.

From KeepsUntilWhere these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you

How to tell if ghee has gone bad

Go by the date first: ghee keeps 1–2 years in the fridge. Sour or off smell, lumps in milk or cream, and mold mean it goes out. On hard cheese, cut away 1 inch around a moldy spot; soft cheese with mold goes out whole.

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 1 year to 2 years in the fridge. Ghee does spoil, but a bacterial limit runs in days and this window runs past six weeks: the figure rates how good it will be. 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 Ghee past its 1 year to 2 years in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Two places, and one of them is the wrong one

The USDA rates two places for Ghee in one state and they disagree: 1 year to 2 years in the fridge against 6 months to 8 months in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 3 months to 2 years against the 2 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

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: butter, clarified, clarified butter

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.