How long doMelonslast in the fridge once opened?
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Freezing does not just add time to this item, it changes the unit the answer is written in: 2 weeks in the sealed fridge against 1 month in the freezer, 2.1 times longer, months in place of weeks.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item no pantry time in days: the 3 figures that carry numbers are all cold ones, and the pantry slot is answered in words instead. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Fruits.
- In the freezer1 month
- In the pantryUntil ripe
- Unopened · in the fridge2 weeks
- Once opened · in the fridge2 days to 4 days
Where the USDA answers in words instead of days
1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the pantry it answers Until ripe, so the clock is the fruit's own ripening rather than a count of days.
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 2 handling notes to this item, reproduced below word for word. None of them is a storage time: they qualify the figures above rather than replacing them. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.
In the freezer. Freezing guidance applies to balled melon.
In the pantry. Until Ripe, then 7 days. Ripe is when this item is tender, fully developed and ready to eat.
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, 3 rows in all.
- In the freezerUse by1 month after the day you stored it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by2 weeks after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by2 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 2 days to 4 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Melons is cut and ready to eat. 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 figures in the freezer and in the fridge here are 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. Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. 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 Melons past its 2 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. Freezing stops the clock but does not turn it back: food already past its window is not rescued by putting it in the freezer. 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.
The two sides of that multiplier are not the same dish
The 2.1× multiplier on this page is drawn across a change of preparation: the source's note on the freezer figure reads "Freezing guidance applies to balled melon". It divides 1 month frozen by 2 weeks sealed in the fridge, and those two are not the same dish. A multiplier whose sides are different preparations is worth printing only with the source's own scope note beside it.
Is that a long time?
15 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 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 this item 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
Only 1 other product in the whole file carries the same set of rated places as this one, freezer, refrigerator from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening: Pesto. That is 1 product out of 466, which makes this a rare shape of record rather than a common one, and it is worth knowing that the comparison below is drawn from a very small group. Of the 1 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Pesto at 6 months. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 132 products match this one.
- Pesto3 days in the fridge once openedup to 6 months sealed in the fridge
Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.
- Blueberries1 week sealed in the fridge
- Bamboo shoots5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Beets1 week sealed in the fridge
- Star fruit1 week in the pantry
- Prickly pear2 days in the pantryup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cantaloupe5 days sealed in the fridge
- Grapes1 week sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Fruits shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Fruits shelf together with 29 others, and 10 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut at 1 year down to Cherries at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Blueberries, Star fruit and Prickly pear, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Produce the same product ranks 30 of 89. The middle of the shelf is Papaya, at 1 week. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Fresh Fruits inside Produce.
- Blueberries2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Star fruit2 weeks1 week in the pantry
- Prickly pear2 weeks2 days in the pantry
- Cantaloupe15 days5 days sealed in the fridge
- Citrus fruit21 days10 days sealed in the pantry
- Coconuts3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Grapes1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
- Papaya1 week1 week 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
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 264 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in weeks, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.
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: melon
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.