Just thought I would share this, although YMMV based on exactly the type of sauce and its ingredients.
I don’t mean strictly home-preserved, but rather a local store-made pasta sauce that is preserved in mason jars. This is a very good authentic pasta sauce made by a wonderful upscale grocery that is preserved in vacuum-sealed mason jars and carries a “best-before” date that is usually just a few months out. I buy it all the time and hoard it because it’s so very much better than any commercially made sauce I’ve ever had. I have exceeded that date many times, by quite a few months, without a second thought and with no apparent consequences.
Today I realized that I had quite a few older jars sitting around, and opened one that was just a shade more than one year past its BB date. I’m glad I checked it out before I used it. It wasn’t really spoiled and probably wouldn’t have me sick, but the smell was not quite right and the taste was oddly bitter. I decided to throw it out and open a fresher one, that was less than 6 months past its BB date. It was all the difference in the world – it had the tangy fresh smell of tomato and the normal mellow taste.
So I guess the answer is, no more than six months past the “best before” date. It’s undoubtedly much longer with mass-produced commercial sauces that are loaded with preservatives.
Damn! I tend to buy a few of these every time I’m at that store and accumulate them faster than I use them, and now I have to throw about about 8 jars of formerly superb pasta sauce!!
I make my own tomato sauces for pasta and have been jarring them for a year now. I just ate the last jar of a batch that I made last July and it was delicious.
Remember that I’m talking about the length of time after the best-before date on the label, not the total age of the sauce. I just checked a recently purchased jar and the best-before date is near the end of October. My inference from this is that they figure it probably ought to be good for about a year, and to cover themselves they print a best-before date that is about half of that.
So if the date is, say, around six months out from the production date, then the stuff that was still perfectly fine would have been a little less than a year old, which is in line with what others have been saying for homemade preservative-free pasta sauce. The stuff that had definitely deteriorated would have been at least 18 months old. (I also have a few jars that are over two years old – no way I’m touching those! Good thing recycling pickup is early next week.)
It’s not a secret, but it’s made by a small independent store here and is only available locally. The store is Pusateri’s, and the sauce is their own semplice (meaning “simple” or “basic”). They also make fantastic meatballs in tomato sauce from a mix of beef, chicken, and veal that I usually add to the sauce, and serve with spaghettini al dente and (if I can be bothered) cremini mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter.
Are you storing it in a cool dark place? I’m surprised you find a noticeable difference after that amount of time. We’ve happily eaten tomatoes canned by my MIL over ten (10!) years ago. It always makes me nervous, but as long as the seal is intact (inspect carefully before opening and when in doubt throw it out) they are fine.
You might want to check the quality on those other jars before dumping them. Just because one tasted off doesn’t mean the others will be too.
I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to add an update, which is that you’re right, and those who have also posted about using pasta sauce a year or more beyond its best-by date are likely also doing the right thing. Of course one always has to be alert to the possibility of actual spoilage.
There was just something wrong with that jar I mentioned in the OP that was just a year past its BB date. As delicious as that sauce (usually) is, they seem to have occasional quality control problems. I opened one last night that was within a month of its BB date, and once again it didn’t seem right – it seemed peppery rather than the usual zippy tomato scent. I threw it out and opened an old one I had saved that was almost exactly two years beyond its BB date. It was delicious, and as far as I could tell, as good as new. So there you go!
The acidity of the tomatoes in pasta sauce, or in something similar like salsa, is one of the factors that helps it last a long time. For low acidity vegetables like green beans, you have to add salt to help the longevity.
When you start to open a mason jar, pay attention to the state of the lid, if it is dimpled down and comes off with a good pop, that’s a sign of a good seal and hopefully safe contents. Lids with a poor seal can be a cause for contents to go bad, or a sign that the contents went bad for some other reason and generated gas pressure that compromised the seal.
