How long doOnionslast in the fridge?
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
Onions, spring or green keeps 1 week, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — yellow, white, red, etc. and spring or green — and they do not keep for the same time: Onions, spring or green holds 1 month outside the freezer, Onions, yellow, white, red, etc. holds 2 months.
The freezer helps less here than you would expect
The freezer buys less here than its reputation suggests: 6 times what the sealed fridge gives, 2 months against 12 months, both still measured in months. For this item freezing is an extension rather than a different way of keeping it.
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. The source also indexes it as yellow, white, red and spring.
Onions, yellow, white, red, etc.
- In the freezer10 months to 12 months
- Unopened · in the pantry1 month
- Unopened · in the fridge2 months
Onions, spring or green
- In the freezer10 months to 12 months
- Unopened · in the pantry1 month
- Unopened · in the fridge1 week
Turning the range into a date
Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 6 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Onions, yellow, white, red, etc.
- In the freezerUse by10 months to 12 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 month after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by2 months after the day you bought it
Onions, spring or green
- In the freezerUse by10 months to 12 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 month after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 2 months in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Onions, yellow, white, red, etc. 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.
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 Onions, yellow, white, red, etc. past its 2 months 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.
Two places, and one of them is the wrong one
The USDA rates two places for Onions, yellow, white, red, etc. in one state and they disagree: 2 months in the fridge against 1 month in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.
Is that a long time?
4 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as Onions, yellow, white, red, etc., 2 months, so they all share place 8 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 75% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 3 of the 6 items nearest Onions, yellow, white, red, etc. keep exactly as long as it does, 2 months, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
12 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer from the day of purchase, pantry from the day of purchase and 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 Garlic, Ginger root and Rutabagas. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 2 keep longer than this one.
- Garlic1 month sealed in the pantry
- Ginger root2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Rutabagas2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Eggplant4 days sealed in the fridge
- Yuca/cassava7 days sealed in the pantry
- Okra2 days sealed in the fridge
- Cashews6 months sealed in the fridge
- Almonds8 months sealed in the fridgeno shell
The rest of the Fresh Vegetables shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Vegetables shelf together with 58 others, and 4 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 Potatoes, Spaghetti squash and Baby carrots, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Produce the same product ranks 8 of 89. The middle of the shelf is Basil, at 10 days. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Fresh Vegetables inside Produce.
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Baby carrots4 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Carrots3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Ginger root3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Rutabagas3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Yams/sweet potatoes3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the pantry
- Cilantro3 weeks2 weeks in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 months, the Produce aisle gives 6 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Jicama at 4 months against this one's 2 months; after it come Pumpkins, Tamarind and Dates. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 77 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Baby carrots and Citrus fruit among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
- Pumpkins5 months3 months sealed in the fridge
- Tamarind6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Dates12 months12 months sealed in the fridge
- Kimchi12 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Coconut1 year8 months in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 294 and 295 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 3 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Onions, yellow, white, red, etc., 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 same record answers to yellow, white, red and spring in the source's own index.
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: green, onion, red, spring, white, yellow
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.