How long doesCranberry saucelast in the fridge once opened?
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — canned and homemade — and they do not keep for the same time: Cranberry sauce, homemade holds 7 days to 10 days outside the freezer, Cranberry sauce, canned holds 2 years.
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 2 weeks open in the fridge, the same food measured in weeks instead of years, a drop of 52 times.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item 3 storage times across the pantry and the refrigerator and none for the freezer, though it does attach a freezing note: a note is not a published figure. The source also indexes it as canned and homemade.
Cranberry sauce, canned
- Unopened · in the pantry2 years
- Once opened · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks
Cranberry sauce, homemade
- In the fridge7 days to 10 days
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 2 handling notes to this item, reproduced below word for word. None of them is a storage time: they qualify the figures above rather than replacing them. 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.
Cranberry sauce, canned, in the freezer. It is not recommend freezing cranberry sauce, as after thawing, it may become too watery.
Cranberry sauce, homemade, in the freezer. It is not recommend freezing cranberry sauce, as after thawing, it may become too watery.
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.
Cranberry sauce, canned
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you opened it
Cranberry sauce, homemade
- In the fridgeUse by7 days to 10 days after the day you stored it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 week to 2 weeks in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Cranberry sauce, canned 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.
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 Cranberry sauce, canned past its 1 week to 2 weeks 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?
7 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as Cranberry sauce, canned, 2 years, so they all share place 6 of 41 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.
Items that behave the same way
All 4 of the 6 items nearest Cranberry sauce, canned keep exactly as long as it does, 2 years, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
Only 2 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, pantry from the day of purchase, refrigerator and refrigerator after opening: Vegetable juice and Salad dressing. That is 2 products 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 Vegetable juice at 18 months.
- Vegetable juice18 months sealed in the pantryshelf-stable
- Salad dressing3 weeks in the fridge once openedcreamy · up to 6 months sealed in the pantry
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
- Dry gravy mixes1 day in the fridgeup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Mustard1 year in the fridge once opened
- Thai red curry paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Black bean sauce3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
- Oyster sauce3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months 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 5 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 Dry gravy mixes, Honey and Mustard, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods the same product ranks 6 of 41. The middle of the shelf is Pickles, at 1 year.
- 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
- Black bean sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
- Oyster sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 years, Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Gravy at 5 years against this one's 2 years, and the rest are Balsamic vinegar and Anchovies. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 24 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Barbecue sauce and Chutney among them.
- Gravy5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
- Balsamic vinegar5 years18 months in the fridge once opened
- Anchovies5 years3 days in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 565 and 566 — 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 Cranberry sauce, canned, 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 2 handling notes, 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: canned, 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.