Ham and smoked sausage: fridge and freezer times
Updated
Cured and smoked meats last longer in the refrigerator than fresh meat, but the freezer does them fewer favors: both charts give them a short freezer window, and Pacific Northwest Extension notes that frozen cured meats lose quality fast.
Both charts give a whole ham a longer refrigerator time than a half ham, and they print the same figures for each.
| Food | Refrigerator | Freezer |
|---|---|---|
| Whole ham | 7 days | 1–2 months |
| Half ham | 3–5 days | 1–2 months |
| Smoked sausage | 7 days | 1–2 months |
✓ 2 sources checked per row A single figure means both charts print the same time.
- Clemson Cooperative Extension, Home & Garden Information Center, Food Storage: Refrigerator & Freezer (HGIC 3522) (revised March 31, 2020) — verified 2026-09-27
- Pacific Northwest Extension (University of Idaho, Oregon State University, Washington State University), Storing Food for Safety and Quality (PNW 612) (revised March 2023), Table 2, p. 14 — verified 2026-09-27
Good to know
- Clemson’s ham rows are labeled fully cooked; Pacific Northwest Extension’s ham rows do not say whether the ham is cooked. Canned ham is left off this page: Clemson’s line is for canned ham labeled “keep refrigerated”, while Pacific Northwest Extension’s is for unopened canned ham in general, so the two lines do not describe the same product.
- Clemson’s row is for smoked breakfast sausage; Pacific Northwest Extension’s says smoked sausage. Both print the same numbers.
- Clemson notes that wrapping food keeps it from losing flavor and from picking up other foods’ odors.
- Neither chart has a line for smoked ham by name. Clemson’s ham lines are “Whole ham (fully cooked)”, “Half ham (fully cooked)” and “Ham slices (fully cooked)”; Pacific Northwest Extension lists ham as whole, half and canned (unopened) and does not say fully cooked. In the meat sections of both charts, the word smoked appears only on sausage lines.
- Clemson’s ham slices line has no matching line in Pacific Northwest Extension, so slices are not on this page.
Both charts give these times for best quality and call them guidelines, not hard limits. How the rows are matched: our method. Spotted a row that does not match its chart? Tell us and we will recheck the original.