Tofu is a fresh product, closer to soft cheese than to a store-cupboard staple, and how long it lasts depends almost entirely on what state it is in. An unopened block and a half-used one sitting in yesterday's packet liquid are two completely different clocks.
Here is the whole thing in one place, and then the reasons behind each number.
| Tofu | Keeps for | Where and how to store it |
|---|---|---|
| Unopened firm or extra-firm block | Until the date on the pack | Fridge, left sealed in its own packet |
| Opened firm or extra-firm block | 3 to 4 days | Fridge, in a sealed container, fully covered with fresh cold water that you change daily |
| Marinated, still raw | 3 to 4 days | Fridge, covered, sitting in its marinade |
| Cooked, fried or crisped | 3 to 4 days | Fridge, in an airtight container once completely cool |
| Silken in a carton, unopened | Until the date on the pack | Cupboard, no fridge needed until you open it |
| Silken, opened | 3 to 4 days | Fridge, covered, in a container |
| Frozen block | About 3 months | Freezer, drained and wrapped, and it thaws into a different tofu |
Does firm tofu last longer than silken?
No, and the assumption runs the other way often enough to be worth clearing up before the rest. Firm, extra-firm, soft and silken all keep for the same time. An unopened block lasts to the date on the pack whichever one you bought, and an opened one gets three to four days in fresh water.
Firmness is a real difference, just not this one. It is set when the block is made, by how much whey gets pressed out of the curd before it is formed. Press harder and you get a denser block with more protein per gram, which is why extra-firm survives a hot pan and silken falls apart in one.
None of that touches what actually spoils it. Tofu turns because of bacteria on the cut surfaces and in the liquid the block sits in, and an extra-firm block in day-old packet water is in exactly the same position as a soft one.
What does change the clock is the packet rather than the block. Silken sold in a sealed carton on a shelf was sterilised inside that box, which is why it sits at room temperature until you open it. Chilled silken in a tub never had that treatment, and gets the same three to four days as everything else here.
"Fresh tofu" on a label or in a recipe means this chilled water-packed kind, as opposed to a shelf-stable carton or a block you froze yourself.
Firmness decides what you can cook, not how long you have to cook it. BBQ Tofu Bowl needs a firm block that holds a cube through the oven, while Korean-Inspired 'Drug' Tofu Bowl wants silken, spooned cold and barely handled at all. Silken, firm, extra-firm works through the whole range.
Unopened tofu
An unopened pack keeps until the date printed on it, provided it has been in the fridge the whole time. The block was sealed in water and heat-treated in the packet, so nothing has had a chance to get at it yet.
A day or two past the date is usually fine on the nose test further down, because that date is about quality rather than a cliff edge. But the printed date is the number to plan your week around, not a guess.
Shelf-stable silken tofu in a carton is a different product entirely. It is sterilised and sealed the way long-life milk is, which is why it sits on a shelf rather than in the chiller. It keeps in the cupboard until the date on the box, and the moment you open it, it becomes an opened tofu like any other.
Once you open the pack
This is where most tofu is lost, and where the advice is least obvious.
Water-packed tofu is sold sitting in water, and it wants to stay that way. Drain off the packet liquid, put the block in a container, cover it completely with fresh cold water, and seal it. Change that water every day. Stored like that it keeps three to four days.
Two things are going on. The packet liquid has been in contact with the block since it was made and is the first thing to turn, so pouring it away and starting again buys you days. And the water itself is a barrier: tofu left uncovered in the fridge dries and hardens at the edges, and because it is bland and porous, it absorbs whatever else is in there. That is the same absorbency we rely on when we marinate it, and it works just as willingly on last night's onions.
If you only need half a block, cut what you need and return the rest to fresh water rather than leaving a part-used packet open on the shelf.
Marinated tofu
Marinated raw tofu gets the same three to four days as anything else you have opened. Keep it covered, in its marinade, in the fridge.
It is worth being clear about what a marinade does here, because it is easy to assume salt and acid are preserving it. They are not, at least not at these concentrations. They slow things down slightly and that is all. What the time actually buys you is flavour: the block keeps drinking the marinade in the whole time it sits there.
That is the argument for marinating a day ahead on purpose. Greek Tofu Salad is noticeably better on day two than an hour in, and Tofu Gyros Wrap with Curry Dressing is built around the same idea. Marinating ahead is a genuine head start on a weeknight, not a compromise.
Cooked and fried tofu
Three to four days in an airtight container, the same as most cooked food. Let it cool completely before the lid goes on, or the trapped steam will soften whatever crust you worked for.
Crisped tofu does not survive the fridge unchanged, and the reason is worth knowing. The crust reabsorbs moisture from the sauce around it, so a golden edge on Sunday is a soft edge on Tuesday. Pack the two apart if you can. Tofu 'Chicken' with Spinach Sauce does exactly this across its five meal-prep containers, with the sauce kept separate from the tofu until the day it is eaten. To bring some texture back, reheat in a dry pan rather than a microwave.
Not every dish suffers from the wait, though. Some are built around it. Eggplant & Tofu Steak Tartare crumbles the tofu into its seasonings and then asks for a night in the fridge before serving, because the block needs that long to take on what it is sitting in. Texture is what the fridge costs you. Flavour is what it buys.
Frozen tofu, and why you might do it deliberately
Frozen tofu keeps about three months before the quality starts to drop. It is safe well beyond that, but the texture and flavour are not what they were.
Freezing does something to tofu that it does not do to most food, and it is much better known about in advance than discovered by accident. Tofu is mostly water held in a fine protein mesh. Freeze it and that water turns to ice crystals which push the mesh apart from the inside. Thaw it and the water drains away, leaving a block that is spongier, chewier and far more absorbent than the one that went in. It will never be silky again, and there is no undoing it.
Which is exactly why several of our recipes ask for it. Marry Me Tofu in Creamy Tuscan Sauce freezes the block overnight, thaws it, then tears it by hand, because those ragged edges hold sauce in a way a clean-cut cube never does. Tofu Butter Chicken offers freezing as a straight alternative to pressing, since both are doing the same job of getting water out of the block. And Greek Tofu Salad freezes or presses before the marinade goes on, because water still in the block is water that is not marinade.
Freeze it drained and wrapped, thaw it in the fridge, then squeeze it gently over the sink. A surprising amount of liquid comes out, and that space is where the marinade goes.
If you want tofu to stay silky, as in a mousse or a dressing, do not freeze it.
How to tell if tofu has gone off
Trust your nose first. Fresh tofu smells of almost nothing, faintly of beans at most. Tofu that has turned smells sour, or faintly like milk on the way out, and that is the most reliable signal you have.
Then look and touch. A slippery or slimy film on the surface, any darkening or yellowing against the white it started as, or a sour taste. Any one of those and it goes in the bin.
Two things worth saying plainly. This is not a "cut off the bad bit" ingredient, because what you can see on the surface is not the whole story in a block that is mostly water. And a block of tofu costs less than a ruined evening, so if you are standing there unsure, that hesitation is your answer.
