Does Hard cheese expire?
Does Hard cheese expire?
Cut the mould off hard cheese and eat the rest. This does not apply to soft cheese.
Months refrigerated; whole waxed wheels keep far longer
Hard cheese has too little moisture for mould to send its filaments deep, so surface mould stays on the surface. The standard food-safety advice is to cut at least 2.5 cm around and below the spot and use the rest. Soft cheese is the opposite case: high moisture lets mould and any bacteria travelling with it spread invisibly through the whole block, so a mouldy soft cheese goes in the bin. Parmesan and similar hard cheeses are essentially preserved food and were designed to be.
How to store it
- Wrap in waxed or greaseproof paper rather than plastic film — cheese needs to breathe or it sweats.
How to tell it has gone
- Surface mould on hard cheese: cut it out. On soft cheese: discard.
- Ammonia smell means it has gone too far.
"Use by" and "best before" are legally different. Use-by is a safety date and should be respected; best-before is about quality, and food is usually fine well past it. Where the two diverge matters, the page above says which applies.
Common questions
- Does Hard cheese expire?
- Cut the mould off hard cheese and eat the rest. This does not apply to soft cheese.
- How long does Hard cheese last?
- Months refrigerated; whole waxed wheels keep far longer
Related pages
- Does Frozen food expire? Food held continuously at −18 °C is safe indefinitely. The dates are about quality only.
- Does Canned food expire? An intact, undamaged can is safe more or less indefinitely. Quality is the limit, not safety.
- Does White rice (uncooked) expire? Effectively no, if it stays dry. Brown rice is the opposite — it goes rancid within months.
- Does Spirits (whisky, vodka, gin, rum) expire? Unopened, indefinitely. Once opened, oxidation slowly flattens the flavour over a year or two — it never becomes unsafe.
- Does Dried pasta expire? Plain dried pasta keeps for years. Egg pasta is the exception and has a real date.
- Does Motor oil expire? Sealed oil keeps for years. Oil in an engine is limited by contamination and by time, not by mileage alone.
- Does Dried beans and pulses expire? Safe indefinitely, but old beans get harder to cook and some never soften at all.
- Does Soy sauce expire? Practically never in a sealed bottle — the salt content sees to that. Opened, it darkens and flattens over months.
- Does Honey expire? Does not expire
- Does Eggs expire? Degrades in quality
- Does Medicines expire? Degrades in quality
- Does Milk expire? Has a real expiry date
- Does Sunscreen expire? Unsafe or ineffective after the date
- Does Salt expire? Does not expire
Sources
- Food Safety and Inspection Service — US Department of Agriculture (Public domain (US Government))