KeepsUntilSearch My fridgeBaked Goods · USDA FoodKeeper

How long do Pies last?

3 kinds under one name

Which kind?

None of them is what the plain word means. Pick yours:

Pecan and 1 more3 days to 4 days
Mincemeat1 week

How this date is worked out

From KeepsUntilIt is past the dateWhat to do when the window has run out, and when tasting is not a test Where these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you Every food on the siteOne page, every product, longest first

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 6 rows across the 3 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Pies, mincemeat

In the freezerUse by8 months after the day you stored it
In the pantry2 hours, and no date will help: it is shorter than a day
Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you opened it

Pies, pecan

In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you stored it
In the pantry2 hours, and no date will help: it is shorter than a day
Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you opened it

Pies, pumpkin

In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you stored it
In the pantry2 hours, and no date will help: it is shorter than a day
Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you opened it

The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — mincemeat, pecan and pumpkin — and they do not keep for the same time: Pies, pecan holds 3 days to 4 days outside the freezer, Pies, mincemeat holds 1 week. 3 of the 3 carry a freezer figure.

The shortest of these, Pies, mincemeat at 2 hours, is a safety limit, and past it the food goes out untasted.

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 mincemeat, meat, mince and pecan.

Pies, mincemeat

In the freezer8 months
In the pantry2 hours
Once opened · in the fridge1 week

Pies, pecan

In the freezer1 month to 2 months
In the pantry2 hours
Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days

Pies, pumpkin

In the freezer1 month to 2 months
In the pantry2 hours
Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days

Why this page prints no multiplier against the room-temperature figure

The USDA's figure in the pantry for all 3 kinds listed here is 2 hours, and 2 hours is a limit on standing at room temperature rather than a window for storing it. No multiplier is printed on this page at all. A ratio whose denominator is a safety limit turns a danger-zone rule into a benefit, and there is no second window here to divide by instead.

From KeepsUntilWhere these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you

Can you freeze pies?

Yes. The USDA gives pies (mincemeat) 8 months in the freezer, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. Baked goods freeze well wrapped airtight. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.

How to tell if pies have gone bad

Go by the windows listed above first. Mold means the whole loaf or package goes out, not just the slice: its threads run further than you can see. Anything with cream, custard or meat goes in the fridge within 2 hours. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.

Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety USDA FSIS: molds on food FDA: are you storing food safely FoodSafety.gov: the FoodKeeper app.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the 2 hours the USDA allows in the pantry has run out, or the dish sat on the counter overnight. That is the clock running while food stands in a warm kitchen, not a shelf life. 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.

Below a day the USDA is not printing a shelf life but a limit on standing in a warm kitchen, and that holds wherever the figure sits. 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

Pies carries no single window to compare — its 3 kinds each keep their own — so these 6 are simply what the USDA rates on the same shelf, shortest first: Doughnuts at 2 days through Cinnamon rolls at 3 days.

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.

No one of the 3 is the kind the plain name means, so this page prints no single figure: the kinds are listed with their own windows and you pick yours.

USDA index terms: meat, mince, mincemeat, pecan, pie, pumpkin

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.