In the comfort of your own home, you’re baking a handmade pizza. You’ve kneaded the dough, formed it, grated the mozzarella cheese, and diced the vegetables and meat. As you smell the ingredients, your stomach rumbles and your mouth waters for some wonderful, cheesy tomato bliss.

Now that you’ve prepped all of the ingredients, it’s time to add the sauce. You open the refrigerator and take out some pizza sauce to spread on your dough. You wonder, “How long does pizza sauce last in the fridge?” You have no idea how long it has been in there, but it can’t be that horrible, can it?

You take a brief sniff and it doesn’t smell unpleasant, so you figure everything is OK. The pie is then placed in the oven for a few minutes.

When the timer goes off, you remove your steaming beauty from the oven. You can’t wait to get started.

You take a nibble, pick up a piece, and oh no. Your pizza is revolting. What occurred? Where did you make a mistake? Then it occurs to you. The sauce had most likely expired. Now, your beautiful pizza is ruined.

We’re here to make certain that doesn’t happen. Continue reading to find out the answer to your query, “How long does pizza sauce last in the fridge?”

How Long Does Pizza Sauce Last in the Fridge ?

How long does pizza sauce keep in the refrigerator? The answer is that it depends on the temperature at which it is kept and the kind of base used. Pizza sauces typically last five to seven days when stored between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sauces with a tomato basis may be stored in the fridge for up to five days after opening. Cheese-based sauces, on the other hand, are made using dairy ingredients, which have a shorter shelf life. After opening, these sauces may be stored in the fridge for up to three days.

Related: What Is the Difference Between Marinara and Pizza Sauce?

Other Alternative Methods of Preserving Pizza Sauce

Freezing your pizza sauce is the best method to keep it fresh. This may extend the shelf life of your sauce by up to three months. You may freeze leftover sauce or a large amount of your own sauce. And once you’ve mastered the technique, you won’t want to go back to squandering sauce.

How to Freeze Pizza Sauce

• Cook your sauce like you usually would.
• Let your sauce cool completely.
• Take out an airtight container, a freezer bag, or a mason jar.
• Pour the cooled sauce into your preferred container, allowing approximately an inch at the top (the sauce will expand as it freezes).
• Place your sauce jar or bag in the freezer and you’re done!

When you’re ready to defrost your sauce, just place it in the fridge and let it there overnight. By the morning, the sauce should have thawed. Place the container in another bigger basin filled with warm water to thaw it faster.

Comparison between Marinara Sauce vs Tomato Sauce

How to Tell if Pizza Sauce is Bad

It is critical that you understand when to discard your pizza sauce, not just for yourself but also for others around you. It might be difficult to tell when something is wonderful and when it has gone bad. However, with a few basic tests and exams, you should be able to determine what you should do.

Examine the Best By Date

The first step is to take your jar and search for the Best By date. This will inform you how long your sauce will last before you need to discard it. The most crucial thing to remember is that this date shows how long your sauce will remain if left unopened. When you open your sauce jar, the expiry process speeds, allowing your sauce to last for few days rather than months.

Inspect the Jar

Always inspect sauce jars or cans before purchasing to ensure that they are in excellent shape. When you reach home, take another look at the jar before completing a smell or taste test. If a can or jar is dented, swollen, the seal is broken, or foam oozes out when you open it, do not use it.

Check for Mold

Examine the contents of the jar. Is there any green, white, or black mold on the sauce lid or in the sauce itself? If this is the case, you should throw away the sauce container right away. Consuming the sauce may make you and others around you ill. Even if there is no evidence of mold in the sauce and the mold on the lid has been removed, the sauce is still unsafe to consume. When in doubt, toss it away.

Smell and Taste Test the Sauce

Our nostrils can detect abnormalities. If you take a brief whiff and detect a sour stench, your sauce is definitely beyond its prime. You should also taste your sauce to determine if it has any sour or rotten tastes. If there is mold on the sauce lid or in the sauce, do not taste it. It might be harmful if consumed.

See Also: Tomato Sauce vs Paste Differences

Conclusion

Pizza sauce is one item that cannot be ruined. If you do, your whole pizza will be destroyed. After all, you can’t simply pluck it off like an onion or an olive. The sauce touches every area of the pizza, and if it’s awful, it’s likely that everything else will taste bad as well.

It makes no difference whether the spaghetti was sweet and savory or hot and spicy. A good pizza sauce may go bad faster than you would expect. When you open the can, verify the expiry dates and mark them. You’ll spare your taste buds and stomach a lot of grief this way.

You can rescue the day (and the pizza) the next time you or someone you know is baking a pizza and wonders how long does pizza sauce stay in the fridge.