How long doesApplesaucelast in the fridge once opened?

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — commercial and homemade — and they do not keep for the same time: Applesauce, homemade holds 3 weeks outside the freezer, Applesauce, commercial holds 12 months to 18 months. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Applesauce, commercial, 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.

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 18 months sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 10 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of months, a drop of 54 times.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. The source also indexes it as apple, sauce, commercial and homemade.

Applesauce, commercial

• Unopened · in the pantry12 months to 18 months
• Once opened · in the pantrynot recommended
• Once opened · in the fridge7 days to 10 days

Applesauce, homemade

• In the freezer8 months to 12 months
• In the fridge3 weeks

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 4 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Applesauce, commercial

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by12 months to 18 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by7 days to 10 days after the day you opened it

Applesauce, homemade

• In the freezerUse by8 months to 12 months after the day you stored it
• In the fridgeUse by3 weeks after the day you stored it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 7 days to 10 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Applesauce, commercial is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

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 Applesauce, commercial past its 7 days to 10 days in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A rancid, paint-like smell in a nut, an oil or a seed, mold around the neck of a bottle, or a swollen can 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?

3 items in the Shelf Stable Foods list keep exactly as long as Applesauce, commercial, 18 months, so they all share place 23 of 70 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 63% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 1 year to 18 months against the 18 months of Applesauce, commercial, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Fruit cocktail, cannedkeeps exactly as long
• Bacon bits, imitationkeeps 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Nuts, jars or canskeeps 2 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Soup mixes, dry bouillonkeeps 1 year in the pantry once opened
• Sun dried tomatoes, jarkeeps 3 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Almond butterkeeps 1 year in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

Only 1 other product in the whole file carries the same set of rated places as this one, freezer, pantry from the day of purchase, refrigerator and refrigerator after opening: Lemon juice. That is 1 product out of 466, which makes this a rare shape of record rather than a common one, and it is worth knowing that the comparison below is drawn from a very small group. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Lemon juice at 18 months.

• Lemon juice2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Nuts2 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Pecans9 months sealed in the fridgeno shell
• Tomato paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 27 months sealed in the pantry
• Crackers3 months in the fridge once openedup to 8 months sealed in the pantry
• Coconut cream4 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Sun dried tomatoes3 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Syrup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Shelf Stable Foods shelf together with 69 others, and 22 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut cream at 5 years down to Polenta at 7 days. Nearest this product by window are Fruit cocktail, Chia seeds and Bacon bits, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 23 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Grapeseed oil, at 1 year.

• Fruit cocktail18 months18 months in the pantry
• Chia seeds18 months18 months in the pantry
• Bacon bits1 year1 year sealed in the pantry
• Marshmallows1 year1 month in the pantry once opened
• Nuts1 year2 months in the pantry once opened
• Pudding mixes1 year3 months in the pantry once opened
• Soup mixes1 year1 year in the pantry once opened
• Sun dried tomatoes1 year3 months in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 18 months, the Shelf Stable Foods aisle gives 10 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Coconut oil at 3 years against this one's 18 months; after it come Tuna, Corn syrup and Cinnamon. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 23 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Graham cracker/animal cracker and Gummy among them.

• Coconut oil3 years3 years in the pantry
• Tuna3 years3 years in the pantry
• Corn syrup3 years3 years in the pantry
• Cinnamon4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
• Cumin4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
• Garlic powder4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
• Onion powder4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
• Nutmeg4 years3 years sealed in the pantry

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 370 and 562 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 4 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Applesauce, commercial, 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. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap.

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: Apple, commercial, homemade, sauce

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.