How long doesBarbecue saucelast in the fridge once opened?

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — bottled and homemade, canned — and they do not keep for the same time: Barbecue sauce, homemade, canned holds 9 months to 12 months outside the freezer, Barbecue sauce, bottled holds 1 year.

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 1 year sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 months open in the fridge, the same food measured in months instead of years, a drop of 3 times.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The source also indexes it as bottled.

Barbecue sauce, bottled

• Unopened · in the pantry1 year
• Once opened · in the fridge4 months

Barbecue sauce, homemade, canned

• In the pantry9 months to 12 months

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is about safety rather than quality, which is the distinction this data is easiest to get wrong. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

Barbecue sauce, bottled, in the pantry. Refrigeration ensures that commercial sauces and condiments stay fresh for a longer period of time. Shelf-stable commercial barbecue sauce is safe when stored at room temperature after opening. Quality, not safety, is the reason the labels on these products suggest that they be refrigerated after opening.

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 3 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Barbecue sauce, bottled

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 year after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 months after the day you opened it

Barbecue sauce, homemade, canned

• In the pantryUse by9 months to 12 months after the day you stored it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 4 months in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the record's own note: the source says quality, not safety, is why the label asks for the refrigerator once open. 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 Barbecue sauce, bottled past its 4 months in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A jar or can that is bulging, leaking or rusted goes out unopened, and so does an opened one with mold at the rim or a sour, fizzing smell.

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?

8 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as Barbecue sauce, bottled, 1 year, so they all share place 18 of 41 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 Barbecue sauce, bottled keep exactly as long as it does, 1 year, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.

• Ketchup, cocktail, or chili saucekeeps exactly as long
• Salsakeeps exactly as long
• Worcestershire saucekeeps exactly as long
• Cream sauces, milk solidskeeps 6 months sealed in the pantry
• Horseradish, in jarkeeps 3 months in the fridge once openedup to 12 months sealed in the fridge
• Salad dressings, commercial, bottledkeeps 1 month in the fridge once openedup to 12 months sealed 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, pantry, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening: Tuna. 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 1 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Tuna at 3 years. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 79 products match this one.

• Tuna3 years in the pantrycanned

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

• Salsa1 month in the fridge once openedpicante and taco sauces · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Mustard1 year in the fridge once opened
• Chutney1 month in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Ketchup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Marinades6 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Pickles1 month in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Tahini3 weeks in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf together with 40 others, and 17 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Gravy at 5 years down to Aioli at 4 days. Nearest this product by window are Chutney, Ketchup and Marinades, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods the same product ranks 18 of 41. The middle of the shelf is Pickles, at 1 year. 2 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• Chutney1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
• Ketchup1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
• Marinades1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
• Pickles1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
• Salsa1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
• Worcestershire sauce1 year1 year sealed in the pantry
• Tahini1 year3 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Cream sauces12 months6 months sealed in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 1 year, the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods aisle gives 12 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Dry gravy mixes at 2 years against this one's 1 year; after it come Honey, Mustard and Sauce mixes. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 13 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Mayonnaise and Pesto among them.

• Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
• Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustard2 years1 year in the fridge once opened
• Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Vinegar2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Thai red curry paste2 years5 days in the fridge once opened
• Cranberry sauce2 years1 week in the fridge once opened
• Relish30 months30 months sealed in the pantry

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 340 and 648 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 3 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Barbecue sauce, bottled, 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 record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word.

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: Barbecue, BBQ sauce, bottled, homemade barbecue sauce, homemade BBQ sauce, homemade sauce, 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.