How Long Does Opened Tomato Sauce Last In The Fridge

Ready-to-eat tomato sauce in the fridge can speed up meal prepping significantly, making it easy to whip up a weeknight pasta or a Sunday chicken parm. However, pulling out an open jar of sauce and discovering it grew some green fuzz can put a dent in the plans. The good news is that as long as you store it carefully, you can confidently keep opened tomato sauce for up to five days in the fridge. Coincidentally, cooked, refrigeratred pasta stores for just as long, so with a little bit of planning you can easily use up leftovers with a quick pasta dinner.

Even when stored correctly, several factors affect how long tomato sauce lasts in the fridge. Jarred tomato sauce from the supermarket may last longer if it contains preservatives while sauces containing dairy or meat may spoil sooner. Different brands of tomato sauce also have different recommended refrigerator shelf lives. Homemade tomato sauce can last in the fridge for three to five days based on the sauce's ingredients.

Depending on what kind of sauce you use most often, it's easy enough to calculate how long it will last in the fridge so you don't get caught sauce-less at home. However, as is always the case with stored foods, do a smell, sight, and taste test on the leftovers in question, and when in doubt, throw it out! Also, remember to always reheat leftovers before consuming so that any stray bacteria is killed off.

Most varieties of tomato sauce will comfortably last for up to five days in the fridge, and some can last even longer. This is because the high acidic content of tomatoes slows down the growth of bacteria. Jarred sauces also often have acidity boosters like citric acid to improve their shelf life further. Consequently, unopened cans of tomato sauce can generally last for over a year when stored in a cool, dark place away from strong odors.

Once opened, you may use it multiple times, but that jar of unused tomato sauce should not be allowed to warm up after it has been refrigerated. Instead, take out the amount you need using a clean, dry spoon to avoid mold spores or excess moisture from getting into the jar and place it back in the fridge as soon as possible. Ensuring your fridge is at the correct temperature and placing the jar near the back of a shelf instead of in the door (where the temperature fluctuates the most) can also stretch your sauce's lifespan.

If you find you're unable to finish the sauce within five days and wish to store it for extended periods, you can freeze it in an airtight container or bag for up to six months. 

It's worth getting to know your tomato sauce in order to accurately gauge how long it can remain in the fridge without spoiling. If you've gone through the effort of picking delicious fresh tomatoes for a homemade sauce, you don't want to see it spoil. Keeping it in the fridge overnight actually makes homemade sauce taste better, since the flavors blend further into each other and the proteins in the ingredients break up to release more umami compounds. 

Since homemade sauce also usually has a shorter shelf life than jarred sauce, only refrigerate sauce that you can finish in the next three days and freeze the rest. The same goes for sauces containing cheese, cream, or meat since these ingredients reduce shelf life to about three days from the usual five.

For store bought sauces, it's not a bad idea to check out the brand's advisory on their product's shelf life. Brands like Ragu and Barilla recommend refrigerating their tomato-based sauces once opened and using them within five days. Rao's tomato sauce (which also happens to be Ina Garten's pantry staple) has a particularly long shelf life. An unopened jar of Rao's has a shelf life of three years and, once opened, can be refrigerated for 10 to 12 days.