← SHELF LIFE LIBRARY

SPINACH · IN THE FRIDGE

5–7 days

Five days. UC Davis puts leafy greens at five to seven days at 0°C in high humidity, and notes they wilt fast at the warmer temperatures a home refrigerator actually runs. Spring mix, baby spinach and bagged salad all live in the same window.

These are quality windows drawn from published UC Davis storage research — an estimate of how long produce stays good, not a safety date. If the package carries a printed use-by date, that date governs.

ALSO SOLD AS leafy greens · salad greens · spring mix · baby spinach · mesclun

By storage method

In the refrigerator
5–7 days
In the freezer
8 months

Near the end of the window?

Cook it. Spinach that is too limp for a salad is completely fine wilted into anything hot, and it collapses to a fraction of its volume — the half-bag that looked like a chore becomes two forkfuls in a pan. Spinach also freezes, which no other salad green really does.

The bag size is its own decision, and a bigger one than most people think: in defense of the smaller bag of salad.

SOURCES

  1. UC Davis: leafy greens 5-7 d at 0°C, high RH; wilt fast at warmer home fridge temp. Retail haircut 1 d.
  2. UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center, Fresh Produce Storage & Shelf-Life recommendations (postharvest.ucdavis.edu).

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.

Pip, the Savery squirrel, looking unimpressed

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.

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