How long doesTomato pastelast in the fridge once opened?

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 27 months sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 5 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of months, a drop of 162 times.

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.

• In the freezer2 months to 3 months
• Unopened · in the pantry27 months
• Once opened · in the fridge5 days

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 by2 months to 3 months after the day you stored it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by27 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by5 days after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 5 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Tomato paste 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 Tomato paste past its 5 days in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A rancid, paint-like smell in a nut, an oil or a seed, mold around the neck of a bottle, or a swollen can 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 70 items the USDA files under Shelf Stable Foods, this item ranks 11 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Corn syrup holds 3 years, Chocolate syrup holds 2 years. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 30% of them.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 2 years to 2 years — a tight cluster, and this item at 27 months is inside it.

• Chocolate syrupkeeps 6 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Popcornkeeps 1 year in the pantry once openeddry kernels in jar · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Black pepperkeeps 2 years sealed in the pantryground, dried, commercially bottled or…
• Cajun seasoning blend, ground, dried, commercially bottled or purchased in bulkkeeps 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Flaxseedkeeps 2 years sealed in the pantrywhole seed
• Almond oilkeeps 2 years sealed in the fridge

Products the USDA rates in the same places

4 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry 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 Yeast, Coconut and Coconut milk. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 4 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Coconut cream at 5 years.

• Yeast4 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Coconut8 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Coconut milk7 days in the fridge once opened
• Coconut cream4 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry

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

• Applesauce7 days in the fridge once openedcommercial · up to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Nuts2 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Crackers3 months in the fridge once openedup to 8 months sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate syrup6 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Shelf Stable Foods shelf together with 69 others, and 10 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut cream at 5 years down to Polenta at 7 days. Nearest this product by window are Chocolate syrup, Molasses and Popcorn, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 11 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Grapeseed oil, at 1 year. 5 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• Chocolate syrup2 years6 months in the fridge once opened
• Molasses2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
• Popcorn2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
• Black pepper2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Cajun seasoning blend2 years1 year sealed in the pantry
• Flaxseed2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Almond oil2 years2 years sealed in the fridge
• "Genuine" Maple syrup2 years2 years in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 27 months, Shelf Stable Foods offers 2 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Coconut cream at 5 years against this one's 27 months, and the rest are Sesame seeds. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 45 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Bacon bits and Marshmallows among them. The largest step the category offers is Sesame seeds at 5 years.

• Coconut cream5 years4 days in the fridge once opened
• Sesame seeds5 years5 years in the pantry

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 501 — 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. 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.

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.