HARD-BOILED EGGS · IN THE FRIDGE
7 days
One week. This is the reversal almost nobody expects: cooking an egg makes it more perishable. Raw eggs in the shell keep three to five weeks refrigerated; hard-cooked, USDA gives them one week.
Boiling strips the shell's protective coating and leaves a thin layer of moisture underneath it, which is a friendlier place for bacteria than a raw egg is.
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 hard-cooked eggs · boiled eggs
By storage method
- In the refrigerator
- 7 days
- In the freezer
- Do not freeze
Near the end of the window?
Eat them, or turn them into egg salad and start a fresh three-to-four-day window from the day you make it. Don't freeze hard-cooked eggs — USDA says not to, and the whites turn rubbery and weep regardless.
Peeling them doesn't extend anything. Refrigerate within two hours of cooking and count from there.
SOURCES
- FoodSafety.gov Cold Food Storage Chart, Eggs: "Hard-cooked eggs — 1 week refrigerated, do not freeze." Shorter than raw eggs in shell, which keep 3 to 5 weeks.
- 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.