How long does Sour cream last?
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA fills 1 of its nine slots for this item, and every one of them says not recommended rather than giving a time. The refrigerator slot is not blank either: the source answers it in words rather than in days, and that answer is set out below.
- In the freezernot recommended
- In the fridgePackage use-by date
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 sour cream?
The USDA does not recommend freezing sour cream. It is not a safety warning, since food held at 0 °F stays safe, but it comes back changed. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.
How to tell if sour cream has gone bad
Go by the date first: the USDA answer is until the package use-by date in the fridge. 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.
Items that behave the same way
The USDA gives this item no window of its own to compare, so these 6 are simply what it does rate on the same shelf, shortest first: Pudding at 2 days through Soy milk at 10 days.
- Puddingkeeps 2 days in the fridge once opened
- Egg disheskeeps 3–4 days in the fridge
- Egg substituteskeeps 12 months in the freezer
- Eggnog, commercialkeeps 3–5 days sealed in the fridge
- Kefir, fermented milkkeeps 1–2 days in the fridge once openedup to 1 week sealed in the fridge
- Soy milkkeeps 7–10 days in the fridge once opened
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: cream, sour
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.