How long does Pimento cheese last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Pimento cheese keeps 4 weeks 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, 1 row in all.
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 weeks after the day you opened it
The methods the USDA actually rates for this item
The USDA rates only 1 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the refrigerator after opening is what it rates. The other 8 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails. On the same shelf it sits 11 of 31, between Whipped cream, aerosol can at 4 weeks and Coffee creamer at 3 weeks.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The refrigerator is the only place the USDA gives this item a storage time, as it does for 64 of the 466 foods the USDA lists.
- Unopened · in the fridgePackage use-by date
- Once opened · in the fridge4 weeks
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 fridge it answers with the package date rather than a number, and the use-by date printed on that particular package is the figure to go by.
Can you freeze pimento cheese?
The USDA prints no freezer time for pimento cheese. Frozen at 0 °F any food stays safe; whether it is still good after thawing is a matter of quality. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.
How to tell if pimento cheese has gone bad
Go by the date first: pimento cheese keeps 4 weeks in the fridge once opened. Sour or off smell, lumps in milk or cream, and mold mean it goes out. On hard cheese, cut away 1 inch around a moldy spot; soft cheese with mold goes out whole.
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.
Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?
The answer at the top of this page reads 4 weeks in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Pimento cheese, packaged is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, it is not safe to eat: throw it out without tasting, because bacteria build up while food still looks and smells fine.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Pimento cheese, packaged past its 4 weeks 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. 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
The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 2 weeks to 5 weeks and bracketing its 4 weeks.
- Whipped cream, aerosol cankeeps exactly as long
- Eggskeeps 3–5 weeks sealed in the fridgein shell
- Coffee creamerkeeps 3 weeks sealed in the fridgeliquid refrigerated
- Cream cheesekeeps 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Dips, sour cream basedkeeps 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Buttermilkkeeps 1–2 weeks sealed in the fridge
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: cheese, pimento, pimento cheese
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.