How long doesGheelast in the fridge?
Built to sit on a shelf
This item is built to sit. It keeps 2 years outside the freezer. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 99% of them. It is long enough that the date it went into storage matters more than anything you can judge by looking at it.
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 clarified butter, clarified and butter.
- In the pantry6 months to 8 months
- In the fridge1 year to 2 years
Turning the range into a date
Counting 2 years 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 by6 months to 8 months after the day you stored it
- In the fridgeUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you stored it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 year to 2 years in the fridge. Ghee does spoil, but a bacterial limit runs in days and this window runs past six weeks: 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.
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 Ghee past its 1 year to 2 years in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell 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.
Two places, and one of them is the wrong one
The USDA rates two places for Ghee in one state and they disagree: 1 year to 2 years in the fridge against 6 months to 8 months 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 Dairy Products & Eggs list keep exactly as long as this item, 2 years, so they all share place 2 of 29 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 99% of them.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 5 weeks to 2 years against the 2 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
- Nacho cheese, store boughtkeeps exactly as long
- Margarinekeeps 6 months sealed in the fridge
- String Cheesekeeps 5 months sealed in the fridge
- Vegan Cheddar Cheesekeeps 3 days in the fridge once openedup to 4 months sealed in the fridge
- Butterkeeps 1 month sealed in the fridge
- Eggskeeps 3 weeks sealed in the fridgein shell
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 "Genuine" Maple syrup, Pumpkin seeds and Bread. 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 "Genuine" Maple syrup at 2 years.
- "Genuine" Maple syrup2 years in the pantryunopened, plastic
- Pumpkin seeds6 months in the fridgeraw, no shell
- Bread2 months in the fridge
- 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
The rest of the Dairy Products & Eggs shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Dairy Products & Eggs shelf together with 28 others, and 1 of them keeps longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Powdered milk at 5 years down to Pudding at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Nacho cheese, Margarine and String Cheese, 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 2 years rather than at the 1 year in the fridge its own answer prints.
- Nacho cheese2 years2 weeks in the fridge once opened
- Margarine6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- String Cheese5 months5 months sealed in the fridge
- Vegan Cheddar Cheese4 months3 days in the fridge once opened
- Butter2 months1 month sealed in the fridge
- Eggs5 weeks3 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Whipped cream4 weeks3 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Pimento cheese4 weeks4 weeks in the fridge once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 years, Dairy Products & Eggs offers 1 product that holds at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Powdered milk at 5 years against this one's 2 years, and the rest are none beyond it. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 26 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Margarine and String Cheese among them.
- Powdered milk5 years3 months in the pantry once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 649 — 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 years, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The same record answers to clarified butter, clarified and butter in the source's own index.
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: butter, clarified, clarified butter
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.