KeepsUntilSearch My fridgeSeafood · USDA FoodKeeper

How long do Scallops last in the fridge?

From purchase · in the fridge

Use by1 day to 3 days

Counted from the day you bought it

Safety limit · past it, throw it out

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

Scallops keep 1–3 days in the fridge from purchase. The window here is 3 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down.

In the freezerUse by6 months to 18 months after the day you bought it
From purchase · in the fridgeUse by1 day to 3 days after the day you bought it

In the freezer

6 months to 18 months

Counted from the day you bought it

180×

What the freezer buys you over the refrigerator540 days frozen ÷ 3 days in the fridge from purchase

One of the largest freezer gains in the data

Freezing pays off here more than it does for 96% of the 179 foods where the USDA publishes both figures. The freezer gives 180 times what the refrigerator gives: 3 days against 18 months. On the same shelf it sits 9 of 17, between Fish at 4 days after cooking and Shrimp, crayfish at 3 days. Scallop in the source list is this same food.

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. Within Seafood it is filed under Shellfish.

In the freezer6 months to 18 months
From purchase · in the fridge1 day to 3 days

Can you freeze scallops?

Yes. The USDA gives scallops 6–18 months in the freezer from the day you buy them, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. Freeze it in moisture-proof wrap; fatty fish turns rancid sooner than lean fish, which is why its freezer time is shorter.

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

How to tell if scallops have gone bad

Go by the date first: scallops keep 1–3 days in the fridge. A sour, ammonia-like or strongly fishy smell, milky slime, or flesh that no longer springs back means it goes out. Cook fish until it reaches 145 °F and flakes with a fork.

Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety FDA: fresh and frozen seafood 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 day to 3 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Scallops 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.

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.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Scallops past its 1 day to 3 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 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

All 3 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 3 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.

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: scallop

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.