How long does Pesto last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Pesto keeps 3 days in the fridge once opened. 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 by6 months after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days after the day you opened it
What opening the package actually costs
Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 6 months sealed in the fridge; once open it holds 3 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of months, a drop of 60 times. On the same shelf it sits 29 of 41, between Mayonnaise, commercial at 6 months and Bacon grease at 6 months. Jarred and jar are the same food in the source list.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA rates this item cold or frozen and never at room temperature: no pantry figure exists for it, as for 222 of the 466 foods in the data that get no pantry time at all. The source also indexes it as jar.
- In the freezer1 month
- Unopened · in the fridge6 months
- Once opened · in the fridge3 days
Can you freeze pesto?
Yes. The USDA gives pesto 1 month in the freezer, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. A sealed jar or can does not need the freezer; leftovers from an opened one freeze better in a small airtight container.
How to tell if pesto has gone bad
Go by the date first: pesto keeps 3 days in the fridge once opened. A bulging, leaking or badly dented can, or a jar whose lid has popped, goes out unopened; so does mold or fizzing in an opened one. Once opened, keep it in the fridge at 40 °F or below.
Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety FDA: are you storing food safely FoodSafety.gov: the FoodKeeper app.
Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?
The answer at the top of this page reads 3 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Pesto, jarred is cooked or ready to eat and still moist. Past it, it is not safe to eat: throw it out without tasting, because bacteria build up while food 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.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Pesto, jarred past its 3 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 whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Items that behave the same way
All 4 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 6 months, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Where these numbers come from
Every storage time on this page is the USDA’s own published figure from the FoodKeeper data, one of the 9 it keeps per food, reproduced unchanged and never an estimate of ours. Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, each kind keeps its own windows, and the page names the kind its answer is for. The dates and multipliers are ours, computed from those ranges.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page. How the site is built is on the method page.
USDA index terms: jar, jarred, Pesto
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.