How long doesGarliclast in the pantry?

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — chopped, commercial jars and USDA record 285 — and they do not keep for the same time: Garlic holds 1 month outside the freezer, Garlic, chopped, commercial jars holds 8 months to 12 months.

How vague the source is about this one

The source is unusually unsure about this one. Its widest range, the refrigerator from the day of purchase, runs from 3 days to 14 days, a factor of 4.7 between the cautious end and the optimistic one, on a figure most people read as a single number.

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 chopped, jars, commercial jars and jar.

Garlic, chopped, commercial jars

• Unopened · in the pantry8 months to 12 months

Garlic

• In the freezer1 month
• Unopened · in the pantry1 month
• Unopened · in the fridge3 days to 14 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.

Garlic, in the refrigerator. Store individual cloves in refrigerator.

Garlic, in the pantry. Store unbroken bulbs in pantry.

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.

Garlic, chopped, commercial jars

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by8 months to 12 months after the day you bought it

Garlic

• In the freezerUse by1 month after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 month after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 14 days after the day you bought it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 1 month in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Garlic 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.

The figure in the fridge here is not settled by this record. 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. 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 Garlic past its 1 month in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold takes the whole package out rather than the slice it grew on, and so does a musty or old-oil smell in a flour or a mix.

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 Garlic in one state and they disagree: 1 month in the pantry against 3 days to 14 days in the fridge. This page answers with the pantry, 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?

Among the 52 items the USDA files under Baked Goods, Garlic ranks 38 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Bread, homemade holds 3 months, Commercial bread products, including pan breads, flat breads, rolls, and buns holds 3 weeks.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 7 days to 3 weeks against the 1 month of Garlic, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• 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
• Fruit pies, apple, peach, blueberry, apricot, cherry, blackberrykeeps 1 day in the pantryup to 1 week in the fridge once opened
• Muffinkeeps 3 days in the pantrycommercially packaged

Products the USDA rates in the same places

12 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer from the day of purchase, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Ginger root, Rutabagas and Eggplant. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 3 keep longer than this one.

• Ginger root2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Rutabagas2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Eggplant4 days sealed in the fridge
• Yuca/cassava7 days sealed in the pantry
• Okra2 days sealed in the fridge
• Onions2 months sealed in the fridgeyellow, white, red, etc.
• Cashews6 months sealed in the fridge
• Almonds8 months sealed in the fridgeno shell

The rest of the Baking and Cooking shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Baking and Cooking shelf together with 34 others, and 33 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Baking soda at 3 years down to Herbs at 10 days. Nearest this product by window are Herbs, Flavored or herb mixes and Biscuit or pancake mix, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Baked Goods the same product ranks 38 of 52. The middle of the shelf is Cornstarch, at 24 months.

• Herbs10 days7 days sealed in the fridge
• Flavored or herb mixes6 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Biscuit or pancake mix9 months9 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

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 1 month, the Baked Goods aisle gives 37 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Cookies at 3 months against this one's 1 month; after it come Bread, Flavored or herb mixes and Biscuit or pancake mix. 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, Commercial cakes and muffins and Herbs among them.

• Cookies3 months2 months sealed in the pantry
• Bread3 months2 months in the fridge
• 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

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 235 and 285 — 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 Garlic, 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: chopped, commercial jars, jar, jars

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.