How long does Relish last in the pantry?
Turning the range into a date
Relish keeps 30 months sealed in the pantry. Counting 30 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by30 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by9 months after the day you bought it
The methods the USDA actually rates for this item
The USDA rates only 2 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase are what it rates. The other 7 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item 2 storage times across the pantry and the refrigerator and none for the freezer, though it does attach a freezing note: a note is not a published figure.
- Unopened · in the pantry30 months
- Unopened · in the fridge9 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. 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.
In the freezer. Freezing not recommended.
Can you freeze relish?
The USDA prints no freezer time for relish. 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 relish has gone bad
Go by the date first: relish keeps 30 months sealed in the pantry. 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 30 months in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Relish keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, whether it has gone bad is yours to judge by look and smell: this window rates quality, not the day it turns hazardous.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Relish past its 30 months in the pantry 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 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 Relish in one state and they disagree: 30 months in the pantry against 9 months in the fridge. This page answers with the pantry, 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.
Items that behave the same way
The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 2 years to 2 years — a tight cluster, and this item at 30 months is inside it.
- Dry gravy mixeskeeps 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Honeykeeps 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Mustardkeeps 1 year in the fridge once opened
- Sauce mixes, nondairy (spaghetti, taco, etc.)keeps 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Thai red curry pastekeeps 5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Cranberry saucekeeps 1–2 weeks in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
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.
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.