How long doesBreadlast in the fridge?

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 2 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry and refrigerator are what it rates. The other 7 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails.

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. Within Baked Goods it is filed under Bakery.

• In the pantry3 days to 5 days
• In the fridge2 months to 3 months

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. 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.

In the pantry. May have shorter shelf life due to lack of preservatives.

Turning the range into a date

Counting 3 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.

• In the pantryUse by3 days to 5 days after the day you stored it
• In the fridgeUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you stored it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 2 months to 3 months in the fridge. Nothing here names the food: neither Bread, homemade nor the heading it sits under says whether it spoils dangerously or keeps itself. Past it, take the shorter of the two answers: we would rather print that the record does not settle it than pick one for you.

The figure in the pantry 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. 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 Bread, homemade past its 2 months to 3 months in the fridge window. If the food is moist, low in acid and ready to eat — a sauce, a drink, a filling — treat the date as a limit and throw it out untasted; otherwise look and smell, and out it goes if either is off.

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. 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.

Two places, and one of them is the wrong one

The USDA rates two places for Bread, homemade in one state and they disagree: 2 months to 3 months in the fridge against 3 days to 5 days in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.

Is that a long time?

2 items in the Baked Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 3 months, so they all share place 36 of 52 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 77% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 7 days to 3 months against the 3 months of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Cookieskeeps exactly as long
• Garlickeeps 1 month sealed in the pantry
• Commercial bread products, including pan breads, flat breads, rolls, and bunskeeps 14 days sealed in the pantry
• Commercial cakes and muffinskeeps 3 days sealed in the pantryup to 10 days in the fridge once opened
• Herbskeeps 7 days sealed in the fridge
• Cheesecakekeeps 5 days in the fridge once opened

Products the USDA rates in the same places

13 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry and refrigerator — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Spaghetti squash, Cilantro and Mint. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Spaghetti squash at 2 months.

• Spaghetti squash2 months in the pantrywhole
• Cilantro2 weeks in the fridge
• Mint2 weeks in the fridge
• Oregano2 weeks in the fridge
• Rosemary2 weeks in the fridge
• Chives2 weeks in the fridge
• Thyme2 weeks in the fridge
• Apple cider2 weeks in the fridge

The rest of the Bakery shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Bakery shelf together with 15 others, and 2 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Pastries at 14 months down to Macaroons at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Cookies, Commercial bread products and Commercial cakes and muffins, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 3 months rather than at the 2 months in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Cookies3 months2 months sealed in the pantry
• Commercial bread products3 weeks14 days sealed in the pantry
• Commercial cakes and muffins10 days3 days sealed in the pantry
• Cheesecake7 days5 days in the fridge once opened
• Fruit pies1 week1 day in the pantry
• Muffin7 days3 days in the pantry
• Quiche5 days3 days in the fridge once opened
• Cream pies4 days3 days in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 3 months, the Baked Goods aisle gives 35 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Flavored or herb mixes at 6 months against this one's 3 months; after it come Biscuit or pancake mix, Fruit cake and Flour. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 15 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Garlic and Commercial bread products among them.

• Flavored or herb mixes6 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Biscuit or pancake mix9 months9 months sealed in the pantry
• Fruit cake12 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Flour12 months6 months in the pantry once opened
• Frosting or icing12 months2 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Gelatin12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
• Oils12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
• Nut oils12 months6 months in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 574 — 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 months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. It is filed under Bakery inside Baked Goods, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.

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: Bread, Breads, homemade

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.