How long doesTurkey baconlast 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 4 months in the freezer, 8.6 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. Within Poultry it is filed under Cooked or Processed.
- In the freezer2 months to 4 months
- Unopened · in the fridge2 weeks
- Once opened · in the fridge7 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 refrigerator, from the day you bought it. Unopened.
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 4 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by2 weeks after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by7 days after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 7 days in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Turkey bacon 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 Turkey bacon past its 7 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?
Among the 19 items the USDA files under Poultry, this item ranks 2 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Canned chicken holds 5 years, Cooked poultry dishes holds 4 days. 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, 2 days to 4 days against the 2 weeks of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
- Fried chickenkeeps 3 days in the fridge
- Chickenkeeps 1 day sealed in the fridgewhole
- Ground turkey or chickenkeeps 1 day sealed in the fridge
- Chicken partskeeps 1 day sealed in the fridgebreast halves, bone-in
- Stuffed, raw chicken breastskeeps 1 day in the fridge
- Chicken nuggets, pattieskeeps 1 day in the fridge once thawed
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, Salami 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
- Salami3 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.
- Rotisserie chicken3 days sealed in the fridge
- Ground turkey or chicken1 day sealed in the fridge
- Chicken parts1 day sealed in the fridgebreast halves, bone-in
The rest of the Cooked or Processed shelf
Cooked or Processed is a short shelf: 4 products besides this one. They run from Cooked poultry dishes at 4 days down to Chicken nuggets at 2 days, and this product sits with 0 products above it. A shelf this small is worth reading whole, which is why every one of them is printed below rather than a sample. Across the whole of Poultry the same product ranks 2 of 19. The middle of the shelf is Rotisserie chicken, at 4 days. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Cooked or Processed inside Poultry.
- Cooked poultry dishes4 days3 days in the fridge
- Fried chicken4 days3 days in the fridge
- Rotisserie chicken4 days3 days sealed in the fridge
- Chicken nuggets2 days1 day in the fridge once thawed
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 weeks, Poultry offers 1 product that holds at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Canned chicken at 5 years against this one's 2 weeks, and the rest are none beyond it. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 17 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Cooked poultry dishes and Fried chicken among them. The largest step the category offers is Canned chicken at 5 years.
- Canned chicken5 years3 days in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 431 — 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. It is filed under Cooked or Processed inside Poultry, 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.
USDA index terms: bacon, turkey
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.