How long doesTomato saucelast in the fridge once opened?

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — spaghetti, pizza and homemade, canned — and they do not keep for the same time: Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza holds 3 days to 5 days outside the freezer, Tomato sauce, homemade, canned holds 9 months to 12 months.

A short window, and what shortens it further

Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza is one of the short-lived entries in the data: 5 days outside the freezer, position 39 of 41 in the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods list. At that scale a day of delay is a large share of the whole window, which is why the figure is printed as a range rather than an average.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The source also indexes it as spaghetti, pizza and homemade.

Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza

• In the pantryPackage use-by date
• Once opened · in the fridge3 days to 5 days

Tomato sauce, homemade, canned

• In the pantry9 months to 12 months

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 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.

Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza, in the pantry. Refrigerating unopened jars will NOT lengthen shelf life.

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 2 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza

• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 5 days after the day you opened it

Tomato sauce, homemade, canned

• In the pantryUse by9 months to 12 months after the day you stored 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: Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza 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.

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 sauce, spaghetti, pizza past its 3 days to 5 days in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A jar or can that is bulging, leaking or rusted goes out unopened, and so does an opened one with mold at the rim or a sour, fizzing smell.

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 41 items the USDA files under Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods, Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza ranks 39 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Vegetable stock/broth, commercially produced holds 7 days, Broth, homemade holds 4 days.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items below are the closest match to Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza by storage behavior, running 4 days to 6 months and bracketing its 5 days.

• Broth, homemadekeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Aioli, homemadekeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Vegetable stock/broth, commercially producedkeeps 3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge
• Duck fatkeeps 30 days in the fridge
• Frying oil, re-usedkeeps 1 month in the fridge
• Mayonnaise, commercialkeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 6 months sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

Only 3 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, pantry and refrigerator after opening: Seafood, White wine and Red wine. That is 3 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 3 shown, 3 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Red wine at 5 years. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 79 products match this one.

• Seafood1 day in the fridge once openedup to 1 year in the pantry
• White wine1 day in the fridge once openedup to 2 years in the pantry
• Red wine1 day in the fridge once openedup to 5 years in the pantry

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

• Barbecue sauce4 months in the fridge once openedbottled · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Salsa1 month in the fridge once openedpicante and taco sauces · up to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Mustard1 year in the fridge once opened
• Anchovies3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years in the pantry
• Beef broth/stock/consommé3 days in the fridge once openedup to 7 days in the fridge

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 38 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 Broth, Aioli and Beef broth/stock/consommé, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza sits here at 5 days rather than at the 3 days in the fridge once opened its own answer prints.

• Broth4 days3 days in the fridge
• Aioli4 days3 days 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
• Vegetable stock/broth7 days3 days in the fridge once opened
• Duck fat30 days30 days in the fridge
• Frying oil1 month1 month in the fridge
• Mayonnaise6 months2 months in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 5 days, the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods aisle gives 35 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Duck fat at 30 days against this one's 5 days; after it come Frying oil, Mayonnaise and Pesto. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. The largest step the category offers is Anchovies at 5 years. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

• Duck fat30 days30 days in the fridge
• Frying oil1 month1 month in the fridge
• 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
• Salad dressing6 months3 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Cream sauces12 months6 months sealed in the pantry

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 599 and 647 — 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 Tomato sauce, spaghetti, pizza, 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. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.

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: homemade, homemade sauce, homemade spaghetti sauce, homemade tomato sauce, pizza, sauce, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce

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.