How long doLentilslast in the pantry once opened?
Built to sit on a shelf
This item is built to sit. It keeps 1 year outside the freezer. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 51% of them. It is long enough that the date it went into storage matters more than anything you can judge by looking at it.
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 pantry1 year
- Once opened · in the pantry1 year
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 by1 year after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the pantryUse by1 year after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 year in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Lentils, dried 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 Lentils, dried past its 1 year in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Insects or webbing in the package, a musty or rancid smell, or clumping that says damp got in mean it goes out whatever the date 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?
3 items in the Grains, Beans & Pasta list keep exactly as long as this item, 1 year, so they all share place 7 of 23 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 51% of them.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 days to 1 year against the 1 year of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry 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 Peas, Marshmallows and Pudding mixes, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.
- Peas1 year in the pantry once opened
- Marshmallows1 month in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Pudding mixes3 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Soup mixes1 year in the pantry once opened
- Gelatin3 months in the pantry once openedflavored · up to 12 months sealed in the pantry
- Tapiocas12 months in the pantry once opened
- Cereal2 months in the pantry once openedready-to-eat · up to 12 months sealed in the pantry
- Toaster pastries1 week in the pantry once openedup to 12 months sealed in the pantry
The rest of the Grains, Beans & Pasta shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Grains, Beans & Pasta shelf together with 22 others, and 6 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Quinoa at 3 years down to Fresh pasta at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Peas, Mung bean and Bulgur, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Grains, Beans & Pasta the same product ranks 7 of 23. The middle of the shelf is Rye, at 6 months. The freezer is left out of the order on purpose: it flattens almost everything it touches.
- Peas1 year1 year in the pantry once opened
- Mung bean1 year1 year in the fridge
- Bulgur12 months6 months in the pantry
- Barley6 months6 months in the pantry
- Farro6 months6 months in the pantry
- Rye6 months6 months in the pantry
- Spelt6 months6 months in the pantry
- Amaranth4 months4 months in the pantry
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 1 year, the Grains, Beans & Pasta aisle gives 6 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Beans at 2 years against this one's 1 year; after it come Pasta, Dry egg noodles and Rice. 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, Barley and Farro among them. The largest step the category offers is Refried beans at 3 years.
- Beans2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Pasta2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Dry egg noodles2 years1 month in the pantry once opened
- Rice2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Quinoa3 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Refried beans3 years2 days in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 334 — 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 years, 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: dried, Lentils
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.