How long doesSalad dressinglast in the fridge once opened?
The USDA rates 5 kinds of this separately
Salad dressing, homemade keeps 2 weeks, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 5 separate entries under this name — creamy, vinaigrette,homemade, vinaigrette, dry,packaged and homemade — and they do not keep for the same time: Salad dressing, homemade holds 2 weeks outside the freezer, Salad dressing, vinaigrette holds 6 months.
What opening the package actually costs
Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 6 months sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 weeks open in the fridge, the same food measured in weeks instead of months, a drop of 6.4 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 creamy, vinaigrette, homemade and dry.
Salad dressing, creamy
- Unopened · in the pantry6 months
- Once opened · in the fridge3 weeks to 4 weeks
Salad dressing, vinaigrette,homemade
- In the fridge2 weeks to 3 weeks
Salad dressing, vinaigrette
- Unopened · in the pantry6 months
- Once opened · in the fridge4 weeks
Salad dressing, dry,packaged
- In the pantryPackage use-by date
- Once opened · in the fridge4 weeks
Salad dressing, homemade
- Once opened · in the fridge2 weeks
Where the USDA answers in words instead of days
1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the pantry it answers with the package date rather than a number, and the use-by date printed on that particular package is the figure to go by.
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 3 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.
Salad dressing, creamy, in the freezer. Freezing not recommended.
Salad dressing, vinaigrette, in the freezer. Freezing not recommended.
Salad dressing, dry,packaged, in the freezer. Freezing not recommended.
Turning the range into a date
Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 7 rows across the 5 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
Salad dressing, creamy
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by6 months after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 weeks to 4 weeks after the day you opened it
Salad dressing, vinaigrette,homemade
- In the fridgeUse by2 weeks to 3 weeks after the day you stored it
Salad dressing, vinaigrette
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by6 months after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 weeks after the day you opened it
Salad dressing, dry,packaged
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 weeks after the day you opened it
Salad dressing, homemade
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by2 weeks after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 3 weeks to 4 weeks in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Salad dressing, creamy is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it still looks and smells fine.
The figures in the pantry, in the fridge and in the fridge once opened here are a quality window. The figure in the fridge once opened 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. 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 Salad dressing, creamy past its 3 weeks to 4 weeks in the fridge once opened window, or the container sat out on the counter overnight. Throw the container out without tasting it, and count any hours it already spent out of the refrigerator as part of that window rather than on top of it.
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.
Is that a long time?
5 items in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list keep exactly as long as Salad dressing, creamy, 6 months, so they all share place 29 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 Salad dressing, creamy keep exactly as long as it does, 6 months, 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 Cranberry sauce. 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 2 shown, 2 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Cranberry sauce at 2 years.
- Vegetable juice18 months sealed in the pantryshelf-stable
- Cranberry sauce1 week in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 2 years 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
- Mayonnaise2 months in the fridge once openedup to 6 months sealed in the pantry
- Beef broth/stock/consommé3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
- Chicken broth/stock/consommé3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
- Vegetable stock/broth3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
- Salad dressings1 month in the fridge once openedup to 12 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 28 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 Mayonnaise, Pesto and Bacon grease, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods the same product ranks 29 of 41. The middle of the shelf is Marinades, at 1 year.
- Mayonnaise6 months2 months in the fridge once opened
- Pesto6 months3 days in the fridge once opened
- Bacon grease6 months6 months in the fridge
- Hot sauce6 months6 months in the pantry
- Duck fat30 days30 days in the fridge
- Frying oil1 month1 month in the fridge
- Beef broth/stock/consommé7 days3 days in the fridge once opened
- Chicken broth/stock/consommé7 days3 days in the fridge once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 6 months, the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods aisle gives 28 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Cream sauces at 12 months against this one's 6 months; after it come Horseradish, Salad dressings and Barbecue sauce. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 8 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Duck fat and Frying oil among them.
- Cream sauces12 months6 months sealed in the pantry
- Horseradish12 months3 months in the fridge once opened
- Salad dressings12 months1 month in the fridge once opened
- Barbecue sauce1 year4 months in the fridge once opened
- Chutney1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
- Ketchup1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
- Marinades1 year6 months in the fridge once opened
- Pickles1 year1 month in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This name is one of the crowded ones in the file: 5 rows carry it, starting at record 623, out of 661 rows in the snapshot altogether. All 5 are printed on this page as separate kinds, because a page that merged their windows into one figure would be publishing a number the USDA never did. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Salad dressing, creamy, 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.
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: creamy, creamy salad dressing, dressing, dry, homemade, homemade salad dressing, package, packaged, powder, powdered, salad, vinaigrette
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.