How long doesSalamilast in the fridge once opened?

Freezing changes the unit, not just the number

Freezing does not just add time to this item, it changes the unit the answer is written in: 2 weeks in the sealed fridge against 2 months in the freezer, 4.3 times longer, months in place of weeks.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA rates this item cold or frozen and never at room temperature: no pantry figure exists for it, as for 222 of the 466 foods in the data that get no pantry time at all.

• In the freezer1 month to 2 months
• Unopened · in the fridge2 weeks
• Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 5 days

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. 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.

In the freezer. Freezing not recommended.

Turning the range into a date

Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 3 rows in all.

• In the freezerUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by2 weeks after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 5 days after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 3 days to 5 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Salami, pre-packaged, luncheon/deli meat 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 figure in the freezer here is a quality window. 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 Salami, pre-packaged, luncheon/deli meat past its 3 days to 5 days 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. Freezing stops the clock but does not turn it back: food already past its window is not rescued by putting it in the freezer. 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?

3 items in the Deli & Prepared Foods list keep exactly as long as this item, 2 weeks, so they all share place 4 of 25 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 53% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 4 days to 2 weeks against the 2 weeks of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners, with USDA sealkeeps exactly as long
• Luncheon meat or poultrykeeps exactly as long
• Cooked ricekeeps 4 days in the fridge
• Coleslaw, homemade, preparedkeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Leftoverskeeps 3 days in the fridgewith meat, fish, poultry, or egg
• Fruit, cutkeeps 4 days in the fridge once opened

Products the USDA rates in the same places

5 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer from the day of purchase, refrigerator from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Hot dogs, Turkey bacon and Chicken. 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.

• Hot dogs1 week in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Turkey bacon7 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Chicken1 day sealed in the fridgewhole
• Turkey1 day sealed in the fridgewhole
• Cheese5 kinds1 week to 12 months

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Luncheon meat or poultry3 days in the fridge once openedpre-packaged · up to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Hummus7 days in the fridge once openedcommercial (pasteurized, with preservatives) · up to 3 months sealed in the fridge
• Olives2 weeks in the fridge once openedblack and green · up to 18 months sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Deli & Prepared Foods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Deli & Prepared Foods shelf together with 24 others, and 3 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Olives at 18 months down to Pate at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners, Luncheon meat or poultry and Cooked rice, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Deli & Prepared Foods the same product ranks 4 of 25. The middle of the shelf is Fruit, cut, at 4 days.

• Commercial brand vacuum-packed dinners2 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Luncheon meat or poultry2 weeks3 days in the fridge once opened
• Cooked rice6 days4 days in the fridge
• Cooked pasta5 days3 days in the fridge
• Potato salad5 days3 days in the fridge
• Pasta salad5 days3 days in the fridge
• Coleslaw5 days3 days in the fridge
• Poultry pieces4 days3 days in the fridge

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 2 weeks, Deli & Prepared Foods offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Canadian bacon at 80 days against this one's 2 weeks, and the rest are Hummus and Olives. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 19 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Cooked rice and Cooked pasta among them.

• Canadian bacon80 days10 days in the fridge
• Hummus3 months7 days in the fridge once opened
• Olives18 months2 weeks in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 516 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in weeks, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.

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: deli meat, luncheon meat, luncheon/deli, packaged, pre, pre-packaged, Salami

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.