How long doJamslast in the fridge once opened?

How vague the source is about this one

The source is unusually unsure about this one. Its widest range, the pantry from the day of purchase, runs from 6 months to 18 months, a factor of three between the cautious end and the optimistic one, on a figure most people read as a single number.

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 jelly.

• Unopened · in the pantry6 months to 18 months
• Once opened · in the fridge6 months to 12 months

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, 2 rows in all.

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by6 months to 18 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you opened 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 fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Jams, jellies, and preserves is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. 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 Jams, jellies, and preserves past its 6 months to 12 months 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 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?

2 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 18 months, so they all share place 16 of 41 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 12 months to 18 months against the 18 months of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Spaghetti sauce, in jarskeeps 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
• Cream sauces, milk solidskeeps 6 months sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 27 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Spaghetti sauce, Lime juice and Pastries, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.

• Spaghetti sauce4 days in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Pastries5 days sealed in the pantryup to 14 months in the fridge once opened
• Chutney1 month in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Ketchup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Marinades6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Pickles1 month in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Syrup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year 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 15 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 Spaghetti sauce, Barbecue sauce and Chutney, 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 18 months rather than at the 6 months in the fridge once opened its own answer prints.

• Spaghetti sauce18 months4 days 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
• Worcestershire sauce1 year1 year sealed in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 18 months, Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods offers 4 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce at 3 years against this one's 18 months, and the rest are Gravy, Balsamic vinegar and Anchovies. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 13 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Mayonnaise and Pesto among them.

• Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce3 years1 month in the fridge once opened
• Gravy5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Balsamic vinegar5 years18 months in the fridge once opened
• Anchovies5 years3 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 347 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 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. The same record answers to jelly in the source's own index. 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: jam, Jams, jellies, jelly, preserve, preserves

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.