How long doMeat productslast in the fridge once opened?

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 5 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of years, a drop of 456 times.

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. Within Meat it is filed under Shelf Stable Foods.

• Unopened · in the pantry5 years
• Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days

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 by5 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 3 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Meat products, canned is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it still looks and smells fine.

The figure in the pantry here is a quality window. The same page carries windows of more than one kind, so which sentence applies depends on which row you are reading, not on the food. 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 Meat products, canned past its 3 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened window, or the container sat out on the counter overnight. Throw the container out without tasting it, and count any hours it already spent out of the refrigerator as part of that window rather than on top of it.

The USDA's limit for perishable food standing at room temperature is 2 hours, or 1 hour when the kitchen is above 90 °F, and that clock runs whatever the storage figure 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?

Nothing the USDA files under Meat keeps longer outside the freezer than this item: 5 years. Next is Jerky at 12 months, and the middle of the 17-item list sits at 5 days. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 16% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 7 days to 12 months against the 5 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Jerkykeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedcommercially dried · up to 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Prosciuttokeeps 2 months in the fridge
• Pastramikeeps 40 days in the fridge
• Hot dogskeeps 1 week in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Pork rollkeeps 7 days in the fridge once opened
• Baconkeeps 1 week in the fridge once opened

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 Canned chicken, Gravy and Nutrition supplement drinks, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.

• Canned chicken3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Gravy1 day in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Nutrition supplement drinks2 days in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Balsamic vinegar18 months in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce1 month in the fridge once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Refried beans2 days in the fridge once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate syrup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Thai red curry paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

Shelf Stable Foods is a short shelf: 2 products besides this one. They run from Jerky at 12 months down to Retort pouches or boxes at 4 days, and this product sits with 0 products above it. A shelf this small is worth reading whole, which is why every one of them is printed below rather than a sample. Across the whole of Meat the same product ranks 1 of 17. The middle of the shelf is Retort pouches or boxes, at 4 days. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Shelf Stable Foods inside Meat.

• Jerky12 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Retort pouches or boxes4 days3 days in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Meat keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 16 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Jerky, Prosciutto and Pastrami. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

• Jerky12 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Prosciutto3 months2 months in the fridge
• Pastrami40 days40 days in the fridge
• Hot dogs2 weeks1 week in the fridge once opened
• Bacon1 week1 week in the fridge once opened
• Corned beef7 days5 days sealed in the fridge
• Pork roll7 days7 days in the fridge once opened
• Venison5 days3 days sealed in the fridge

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 111 — 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. It is filed under Shelf Stable Foods inside Meat, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.

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: canned, meat, Meat products, product, products

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.