How long doesMustardlast in the fridge once opened?
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
Mustard, dried, ground keeps 6 months, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — USDA record 351 and dried, ground — and they do not keep for the same time: Mustard, dried, ground holds 6 months outside the freezer, Mustard holds 1 year to 2 years.
Sealed against opened
Opening the package costs 2 times here: 2 years sealed in the pantry against 1 year open in the fridge. That is a real difference and worth dating the container for, but not the collapse it becomes for the more perishable items in the same list.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage.
Mustard
- Unopened · in the pantry1 year to 2 years
- Once opened · in the fridge1 year
Mustard, dried, ground
- In the freezer1 year to 2 years
- In the pantry6 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is about safety rather than quality, which is the distinction this data is easiest to get wrong. 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.
Mustard, in the pantry. Refrigeration ensures that commercial sauces and condiments stay fresh for a longer period of time. Shelf-stable commercial mustard is safe when stored at room temperature after opening. Quality, not safety, is the reason the labels on these products suggest that they be refrigerated after opening.
Turning the range into a date
Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 4 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Mustard
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 year after the day you opened it
Mustard, dried, ground
- In the freezerUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you stored it
- In the pantryUse by6 months after the day you stored it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 year in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the record's own note: the source says quality, not safety, is why the label asks for the refrigerator once open. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
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 Mustard past its 1 year 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?
7 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as Mustard, 2 years, so they all share place 6 of 41 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 97% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 4 of the 6 items nearest Mustard keep exactly as long as it does, 2 years, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
No other product in the file is rated in exactly this set of places: freezer, pantry, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening, and nothing else. That makes the shape of this record unique among the 466 products here, so the closest comparisons available are the entries that share most of it — Salsa, Barbecue sauce and Anchovies. Their windows are printed beside them below, and none of them is rated in quite the same way. Of the 8 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one.
Nothing carries this exact set of places, so these share most of it.
- Salsa1 month in the fridge once openedpicante and taco sauces · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Barbecue sauce4 months in the fridge once openedbottled · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Anchovies3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years in the pantry
- Thai red curry paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Cranberry sauce1 week in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Black bean sauce3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
- Oyster sauce3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
- Hoisin sauce3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months 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 5 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 Dry gravy mixes, Honey and Sauce mixes, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Mustard sits here at 2 years rather than at the 1 year in the fridge once opened its own answer prints.
- Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
- Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Vinegar2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Thai red curry paste2 years5 days in the fridge once opened
- Cranberry sauce2 years1 week in the fridge once opened
- Black bean sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
- Oyster sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 years, Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Gravy at 5 years against this one's 2 years, and the rest are Balsamic vinegar and Anchovies. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 24 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Barbecue sauce and Chutney among them.
- 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
The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 351 and 684 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 4 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Mustard, 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. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word.
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 ground mustard, dried mustard, ground mustard
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.