How long doSpice/spiceslast in the pantry once opened?

Name: Spice/spices: 2 years in the pantry once opened, 2 kinds
Creator: KeepsUntil

2 kinds · each with its own window

Spice/spices, ground · Once opened · in the pantry

Use by2 years to 3 years

Counted from the day you opened it

Quality window · past it, judge it yourself

How this date is worked out

From KeepsUntilIt is past the dateWhat to do when the window has run out, and when tasting is not a test

Spice/spices, ground · Unopened · in the pantry

2 years to 3 years

Counted from the day you bought it

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — whole and ground — and they do not keep for the same time: Spice/spices, ground holds 2 years to 3 years outside the freezer, Spice/spices, whole holds 3 years to 4 years.

Built to sit on a shelf

Spice/spices, ground is built to sit. It keeps 3 years outside the freezer. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 92% 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 rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way. The source also indexes it as whole and ground.

Spice/spices, whole

Unopened · in the pantry3 years to 4 years
Once opened · in the pantry3 years to 4 years

Spice/spices, ground

Unopened · in the pantry2 years to 3 years
Once opened · in the pantry2 years to 3 years

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.

Spice/spices, whole

Unopened · in the pantryUse by3 years to 4 years after the day you bought it
Once opened · in the pantryUse by3 years to 4 years after the day you opened it

Spice/spices, ground

Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years to 3 years after the day you bought it
Once opened · in the pantryUse by2 years to 3 years after the day you opened it

From KeepsUntilWhere these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 2 years to 3 years in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Spice/spices, ground 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.

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 Spice/spices, ground past its 2 years to 3 years in the pantry once opened 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 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?

2 items in the Baked Goods list keep exactly as long as Spice/spices, ground, 3 years, so they all share place 1 of 52 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 92% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 years to 3 years against the 3 years of Spice/spices, ground, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Baking soda, Tea and Textured soy protein, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.

Baking soda6 months in the pantry once openedup to 3 years sealed in the pantry
Tea6 months in the pantry once openedbags · up to 36 months sealed in the pantry
Textured soy protein3 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
Chocolate1 year in the pantry once opened
Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
Chili powder2 years in the pantry once opened
Seasoning blends1 year in the pantry once opened

The rest of the Baking and Cooking shelf

Nothing else on the Baking and Cooking shelf keeps longer outside the freezer than this one. The other 34 products there run down from Baking soda at 3 years to Herbs at 10 days, and the ones nearest this product by window are Baking soda, Chocolate and Cornmeal. That makes this page the top of its own shelf rather than a middle entry. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Spice/spices, ground sits here at 3 years rather than at the 2 years in the pantry once opened its own answer prints.

Baking soda3 years6 months in the pantry once opened
Chocolate2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
Cornmeal2 years6 months sealed in the pantry
Vegetable oil sprays2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
Shortening2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
Chili powder2 years2 years in the pantry once opened
Seasoning blends2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
Sugar substitutes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Baked Goods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 33 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Baking powder, Cake and Pastries. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

Baking powder18 months3 months in the pantry once opened
Cake18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
Pastries14 months5 days sealed in the pantry
Cocoa and cocoa mixes1 year1 year in the pantry once opened
Garam masala1 year1 year 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

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 237 and 238 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 2 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Spice/spices, ground, 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 same record answers to whole and ground 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: ground, Spice, spices, whole

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.