How long doesMisolast in the fridge?
Why the freezer is not an option here
The USDA marks the freezer as not recommended for this item, so the whole answer is a single field: 1 year in the refrigerator from the day of purchase. It is not a warning: food held at 0 °F stays safe, so a not-recommended is a verdict on what would come out of the freezer.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The refrigerator is the only place the USDA gives this item a storage time, as it does for 64 of the 466 foods the USDA lists.
- In the freezernot recommended
- Unopened · in the fridge1 year
Turning the range into a date
Counting 1 year forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 year after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 year in the fridge. Miso 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 Miso past its 1 year 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.
Is that a long time?
Among the 5 items the USDA files under Vegetarian Proteins, this item ranks 2 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Textured soy protein, (TSP) holds 2 years, Soy flour, full-fat holds 6 months. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 97% of them.
Items that behave the same way
The 4 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 1 week to 2 years and bracketing its 1 year.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
14 other products are rated in exactly these places — 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 Kimchi, Herring and String Cheese. 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 Kimchi at 12 months.
- Kimchi6 months sealed in the fridge
- Herring4 months sealed in the fridge
- String Cheese5 months sealed in the fridge
- Whipped cream3 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cream cheese2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Dips2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Lettuce1 week sealed in the fridgeiceberg, romaine
The rest of the Vegetarian Proteins shelf
Vegetarian Proteins is a short shelf: 4 products besides this one. They run from Textured soy protein at 2 years down to Tofu at 1 week, and this product sits with 1 product above it. A shelf this small is worth reading whole, which is why every one of them is printed below rather than a sample. Across the whole of Vegetarian Proteins the same product ranks 2 of 5. The middle of the shelf is Re-hydrated textured soy protein, at 4 months. The freezer is left out of the order on purpose: it flattens almost everything it touches.
- Soy flour6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Re-hydrated textured soy protein4 months3 days in the fridge
- Tofu1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
- Textured soy protein2 years3 months in the pantry once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 1 year, Vegetarian Proteins offers 1 product that holds at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Textured soy protein at 2 years against this one's 1 year, 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, 3 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Soy flour and Re-hydrated textured soy protein among them.
- Textured soy protein2 years3 months in the pantry once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 169 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 1 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. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap.
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.
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.