How long doesSausagelast in the fridge?

The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — raw bulk type or patties, fully cooked smoked links, kielbasa and hard, dry (pepperoni), sliced — and they do not keep for the same time: Sausage, raw bulk type or patties holds 1 day to 2 days outside the freezer, Sausage, hard, dry (pepperoni), sliced holds 2 weeks to 3 weeks.

Freezing changes the unit, not just the number

Here the freezer does not so much extend the answer as replace it. 2 days in the sealed fridge becomes 2 months in the freezer: 30 times longer, and days turning into months. The freezer from the day of purchase figure alone spans 1 month to 2 months, a factor of two.

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 raw bulk type, patties, raw and patty.

Sausage, raw bulk type or patties

• In the freezer1 month to 2 months
• Unopened · in the fridge1 day to 2 days

Sausage, fully cooked smoked links, kielbasa

• In the freezer1 month to 2 months
• Unopened · in the fridge1 week

Sausage, hard, dry (pepperoni), sliced

• In the freezer1 month to 2 months
• Unopened · in the fridge2 weeks to 3 weeks

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.

Sausage, raw bulk type or patties

• In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 day to 2 days after the day you bought it

Sausage, fully cooked smoked links, kielbasa

• In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you bought it

Sausage, hard, dry (pepperoni), sliced

• In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by2 weeks to 3 weeks after the day you bought it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 1 day to 2 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Sausage, raw bulk type or patties is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it still looks and smells fine.

The figure in the freezer here is 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. Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Sausage, raw bulk type or patties past its 1 day to 2 days in the fridge 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 FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

6 items in the Meat list keep exactly as long as Sausage, raw bulk type or patties, 2 days, so they all share place 12 of 17 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.

Items that behave the same way

All 3 of the 6 items nearest Sausage, raw bulk type or patties keep exactly as long as it does, 2 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.

• Rabbit, whole, freshkeeps exactly as long
• Chorizokeeps exactly as long
• Variety meats, liver, tongue, chitterlings, etc.keeps exactly as long
• Bratwurstkeeps 2 days in the fridgefresh
• Retort pouches or boxeskeeps 3 days in the fridge once opened
• Venison, round, rump, loin, or rib roastkeeps 3 days sealed in the fridge

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 52 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, freezer from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Variety meats, Stuffed, raw pork chops and Raw kabobs with vegetables, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.

• Variety meats1 day sealed in the fridge
• Stuffed, raw pork chops1 day sealed in the fridge
• Raw kabobs with vegetables1 day sealed in the fridge
• Ground turkey or chicken1 day sealed in the fridge
• Chicken parts1 day sealed in the fridgebreast halves, bone-in
• Turkey parts1 day sealed in the fridgebreast halves, bone-in
• Duckling1 day sealed in the fridge
• Goose1 day sealed in the fridge

The rest of the Smoked or Processed shelf

Every one of the other 6 products on the Smoked or Processed shelf keeps longer outside the freezer than this one, from Prosciutto at 3 months down to Pork roll at 7 days. The closest of them by window are Bacon, Corned beef and Pork roll, and the gap between this product and the rest of its shelf is the thing worth noticing here. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Sausage, raw bulk type or patties sits here at 2 days rather than at the 1 day sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Bacon1 week1 week in the fridge once opened
• Corned beef7 days5 days sealed in the fridge
• Pork roll7 days7 days in the fridge once opened
• Hot dogs2 weeks1 week in the fridge once opened
• Pastrami40 days40 days in the fridge
• Prosciutto3 months2 months in the fridge

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 2 days, the Meat aisle gives 10 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Retort pouches or boxes at 4 days against this one's 2 days; after it come Venison, Bacon and Corned beef. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. The largest step the category offers is Meat products at 5 years. Freezing this one instead would reach 2 months, which the comparison above leaves out on purpose.

• Retort pouches or boxes4 days3 days in the fridge once opened
• Venison5 days3 days sealed in the fridge
• Bacon1 week1 week in the fridge once opened
• Corned beef7 days5 days sealed in the fridge
• Pork roll7 days7 days in the fridge once opened
• Hot dogs2 weeks1 week in the fridge once opened
• Pastrami40 days40 days in the fridge
• Prosciutto3 months2 months in the fridge

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 3 separate rows under this name — records 102, 103 and 104 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 2 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Sausage, raw bulk type or patties, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in. The same record answers to raw bulk type, patties, raw and patty in the source's own index.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: dry, dry pepperoni, fully cooked, fully cooked smoked links, hard, kielbasa, link, links, patties, patty, pepperoni, raw, raw bulk type, slice, sliced, smoked links

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.