SHRIMP · IN THE FRIDGE
3–5 days
Three to five days refrigerated, which is generous for seafood — roughly double what fresh fin fish gets. Frozen, shrimp and crayfish run six to eighteen months, the longest freezer window on USDA's shellfish list.
Worth knowing: most shrimp at the counter was frozen at sea and thawed for display. If that is true of yours, refreezing it costs quality and the fridge clock is already running.
These are quality windows drawn from published USDA food-safety guidance — an estimate of how long food stays good, not a safety date. If the package carries a printed use-by date, that date governs.
ALSO SOLD AS prawns · crayfish
By storage method
- In the refrigerator
- 3–5 days
- In the freezer
- 6–18 months
Near the end of the window?
Cook them. Shrimp go from raw to done in about three minutes, so there is rarely a reason to lose them. Buying them frozen and thawing what you need is the version of this that wastes nothing at all.
SOURCES
- FoodSafety.gov Cold Food Storage Chart, Shellfish: "Shrimp, Crayfish — 3 to 5 days refrigerated, 6 to 18 months frozen."
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Cold Food Storage Charts (fsis.usda.gov).
Ranges are as published. Treat the short end as your real window — grocery produce is already days past harvest, and a cooked dish starts its clock at the stove.
Looking up your groceries one at a time is a hobby. A bad one.
Savery scans your grocery receipt and tracks these windows for everything you bought at once. The spinach, the strawberries, the milk you forgot about — all on one shelf.