How long doesLettucelast in the fridge?
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
Lettuce, leaf, spinach keeps 3 days, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — iceberg, romaine and leaf, spinach — and they do not keep for the same time: Lettuce, leaf, spinach holds 3 days to 7 days outside the freezer, Lettuce, iceberg, romaine holds 1 week to 2 weeks.
Why the freezer is not an option here
The USDA marks the freezer as not recommended for every one of the 2 kinds under this name, and for Lettuce, iceberg, romaine the whole answer is 1 week to 2 weeks in the refrigerator from the day of purchase. 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. The source also indexes it as iceberg, romaine, leaf and spinach.
Lettuce, iceberg, romaine
- In the freezernot recommended
- Unopened · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks
Lettuce, leaf, spinach
- In the freezernot recommended
- Unopened · in the fridge3 days to 7 days
Turning the range into a date
Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 2 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Lettuce, iceberg, romaine
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you bought it
Lettuce, leaf, spinach
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 7 days after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Lettuce, iceberg, romaine is raw and whole. 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 Lettuce, iceberg, romaine past its 1 week to 2 weeks 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 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?
15 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as Lettuce, iceberg, romaine, 2 weeks, so they all share place 30 of 89 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 53% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 6 of the 6 items nearest Lettuce, iceberg, romaine keep exactly as long as it does, 2 weeks, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
14 other products are rated in exactly these places — refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Cream cheese, Dips and Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Cream cheese at 2 weeks.
- Cream cheese2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Dips2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Radishes10 days sealed in the fridge
- Swiss chard1 week sealed in the fridge
- Fresh clams5 days sealed in the fridge
- Bean sprouts5 days sealed in the fridge
- Rhubarb3 days sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Vegetables shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Vegetables shelf together with 58 others, and 19 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Kimchi at 12 months down to Corn on the cob at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Artichokes, Bamboo shoots and Beets, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Lettuce, iceberg, romaine sits here at 2 weeks rather than at the 1 week sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.
- Artichokes2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Bamboo shoots2 weeks5 days in the fridge once opened
- Beets2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Cabbage2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Celery2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Leeks2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Peppers14 days4 days sealed in the fridge
- Radishes14 days10 days sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 weeks, the Produce aisle gives 13 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Baby carrots at 4 weeks against this one's 2 weeks; after it come Apples, Cranberries and Onions. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 41 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Grapes and Papaya among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Baby carrots4 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Apples6 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cranberries2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Onions2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Pomegranate3 months1 month sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
The record this page is built from
The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 290 and 291 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 1 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Lettuce, iceberg, romaine, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap.
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: iceberg, leaf, romaine, spinach
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.