How long do Salad dressings last in the fridge once opened?
Turning the range into a date
Salad dressings keep 1–3 months 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, 2 rows in all.
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by10 months to 12 months after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 month to 3 months after the day you opened it
How vague the source is about this one
The source is unusually unsure about this one. Its widest range, the refrigerator after opening, runs from 1 month to 3 months, a factor of three between the cautious end and the optimistic one, on a figure most people read as a single number. Dressing, commercial and bottled are the same food in the source list. Opening the package costs 4 times: 12 months sealed in the pantry, 3 months open in the fridge.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data.
- Unopened · in the pantry10 months to 12 months
- Once opened · in the fridge1 month to 3 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is about safety rather than quality, which is the distinction this data is easiest to get wrong. 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 pantry. Refrigeration ensures that commercial sauces and condiments stay fresh for a longer period of time. Shelf-stable commercial salad dressing is safe when stored at room temperature after opening. Quality, not safety, is the reason the labels on these products suggest that they be refrigerated after opening.
Can you freeze salad dressings?
The USDA prints no freezer time for salad dressings. Frozen at 0 °F any food stays safe; whether they are 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 salad dressings have gone bad
Go by the date first: salad dressings keep 1–3 months 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 1 month to 3 months in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the record's own note: the source says quality, not safety, is why the label asks for the refrigerator once open. 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 Salad dressings, commercial, bottled past its 1 month to 3 months in the fridge once opened 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.
Items that behave the same way
The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 12 months to 1 year — a tight cluster, and this item at 12 months is inside it.
- Cream sauces, milk solidskeeps exactly as long
- Horseradish, in jarkeeps exactly as long
- Barbecue saucekeeps 4 months in the fridge once openedbottled · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Chutneykeeps 1–2 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Ketchup, cocktail, or chili saucekeeps 6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Marinadeskeeps 6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year 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.
USDA index terms: bottle, bottled, commercial, dressing, dressings, salad, Salad dressings
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.