How long doesTextured soy proteinlast in the pantry once opened?
What opening the package actually costs
Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 2 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 months open in the pantry, the same food measured in months instead of years, a drop of 6.1 times.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way.
- Unopened · in the pantry2 years
- Once opened · in the pantry3 months to 4 months
Turning the range into a date
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 by2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the pantryUse by3 months to 4 months after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 3 months to 4 months in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Textured soy protein, (TSP) keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
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 Textured soy protein, (TSP) past its 3 months to 4 months in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.
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?
Nothing the USDA files under Vegetarian Proteins keeps longer outside the freezer than this item: 2 years. Next is Miso at 1 year, and the middle of the 5-item list sits at 6 months. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 70% of them.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 4 nearest items keeps the same or less, 1 week to 1 year against the 2 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry after opening, 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 Chocolate, Vegetable oil sprays and Shortening, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.
- Chocolate1 year in the pantry once opened
- Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Chili powder2 years in the pantry once opened
- Seasoning blends1 year in the pantry once opened
- Beans1 year in the pantry once opened
- Pasta1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Dry egg noodles1 month in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
The rest of the Vegetarian Proteins shelf
Vegetarian Proteins is a short shelf: 4 products besides this one. They run from Miso at 1 year down to Tofu at 1 week, and this product sits with 0 products above it. A shelf this small is worth reading whole, which is why every one of them is printed below rather than a sample. Across the whole of Vegetarian Proteins the same product ranks 1 of 5. The middle of the shelf is Re-hydrated textured soy protein, at 4 months. The freezer is left out of the order on purpose: it flattens almost everything it touches.
- Miso1 year1 year sealed in the fridge
- Soy flour6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Re-hydrated textured soy protein4 months3 days in the fridge
- Tofu1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
Nothing the USDA files under Vegetarian Proteins keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 4 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Miso, Soy flour and Re-hydrated textured soy protein. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.
- Miso1 year1 year sealed in the fridge
- Soy flour6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Re-hydrated textured soy protein4 months3 days in the fridge
- Tofu1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 171 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in years, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.
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: protein, soy, soy protein, Textured soy protein, TSP
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.