How long doesTamarindlast in the fridge?
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Freezing moves this item onto a different calendar. 6 months in the sealed fridge becomes 1 year in the freezer, 2 times longer, and the point at which you stop counting in months and start counting in years.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Vegetables.
- In the freezer1 year
- Unopened · in the pantry1 week to 3 weeks
- Unopened · in the fridge6 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 2 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.
In the freezer. Freezing guidelines apply to just the pulp.
In the refrigerator. Refrigeration guidelines apply to just the pulp.
Turning the range into a date
Counting 6 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.
- In the freezerUse by1 year after the day you stored it
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 week to 3 weeks after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by6 months after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 6 months in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Tamarind is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
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 Tamarind past its 6 months 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 Tamarind in one state and they disagree: 6 months in the fridge against 1 week to 3 weeks 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?
Among the 89 items the USDA files under Produce, this item ranks 4 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Kimchi holds 12 months, Pumpkins holds 5 months. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 84% of them.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 months to 5 months against the 6 months of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
10 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry from the day of purchase and 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 Pomegranate, Apples and Baby carrots. 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.
- Pomegranate1 month sealed in the fridge
- Apples4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Baby carrots4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cantaloupe5 days sealed in the fridge
- Grapes1 week sealed in the fridge
- Papaya1 week sealed in the fridge
- Honeydew2 days sealed in the pantry
- Watermelon3 days sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Vegetables shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Vegetables shelf together with 58 others, and 1 of them keeps longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Kimchi at 12 months down to Corn on the cob at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Pumpkins, Jicama and Onions, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Produce the same product ranks 4 of 89. The middle of the shelf is Basil, at 10 days. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Fresh Vegetables inside Produce.
- Pumpkins5 months3 months sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
- Onions2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Baby carrots4 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Carrots3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Ginger root3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 6 months, Produce offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Dates at 12 months against this one's 6 months, and the rest are Kimchi and Coconut. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 83 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Pomegranate and Cranberries among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Dates12 months12 months sealed in the fridge
- Kimchi12 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Coconut1 year8 months in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 304 — 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 months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 2 handling notes, quoted on this page word for word. It is filed under Fresh Vegetables inside Produce, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.
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.