How to Store Cilantro So It Lasts Longer

Cilantro, unlike basil, likes the cold. The colder you keep it (short of freezing), the longer it lasts, and the best home method is also the simplest: stems in a jar of water, leaves loosely covered, in the fridge. In one home test, that bunch lasted just over four weeks.¹ Its smell will fade before its looks do, though.² For longer than a few weeks, freeze it for cooking. Dried cilantro is a poor stand-in.³

At a glance

Method	How long, by source	Best for
Jar of water, loosely bagged, in the fridge	Just over 4 weeks in one home test¹	Garnish, salsa, anything raw
Damp paper towels in an open bag, in the fridge	No duration given (ATK’s method)⁴	A small bunch, short term
Cut leaves in the fridge	About a week (Wisconsin Extension)⁵	Short term
Frozen	Up to a year for herbs in general⁶	Cooked dishes only
Dried	Keeps, but much weaker in flavor³	Little

How long fresh cilantro lasts: what the sources say

The numbers vary a lot, and they come from different conditions, so don’t average them.

Source	Conditions	Result
Loaiza and Cantwell, UC Davis, 1997²	Commercial cilantro, held in air in the lab	Good visual quality for 18 to 22 days at 0°C (32°F); about 14 days at 5°C (41°F) and about 7 days at 7.5°C (45.5°F). Aroma fell off notably after 14 days at every condition.
Fine Gardening (Jodi Torpey)¹	One home test of three bundles	Jar of water, covered with a bag, in the fridge: just over four weeks. Airtight container in the fridge: about 10 days longer than the counter jar, but the leaves discolored. Jar of water on the counter: just over seven days.
Wisconsin Master Gardener Program⁵	Cut leaves, home refrigerator	About a week

First, temperature matters. Each step from 0 to 7.5°C cut the study’s shelf life sharply.² A home fridge typically runs at about 40°F (4°C),⁷ close to the study’s 5°C condition, so keep cilantro in the coldest part of the fridge, not the door. Second, looks aren’t everything. The UC Davis study found cilantro’s typical aroma dropped after two weeks even when the leaves still looked good.²

The jar method

This one had the best home result.

Trim the stem ends.
Stand the bunch in a small jar with water.
Cover the leaves loosely with a plastic bag.
Refrigerate, and check every few days that there’s plenty of water.

Fine Gardening’s tester checked the jars every few days and topped up the water.¹ It’s one person’s test, not a controlled trial, but it lines up with the commercial finding that cold storage keeps cilantro longest.²

The paper towel method, and a disagreement

America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) groups cilantro with the delicate herbs and gives a different method: wrap the herbs in slightly damp paper towels, put them in an open zipper-lock bag, and refrigerate. Delicate herbs have to stay moist or they wilt, ATK says, but they shouldn’t touch liquid, which encourages rot.⁴ That clashes with the jar method, where the stems stand in water. We found no side-by-side test of the two. The Fine Gardening tester found that cilantro can turn mushy in a plastic bag in the fridge,¹ but didn’t test ATK’s damp-towel method.

If you wash cilantro before storing it, dry it well. ATK spins herbs dry in a paper towel–lined salad spinner.⁴

Freezing cilantro

Frozen cilantro won’t work as a garnish. Frozen herbs go limp when thawed and are best in cooked dishes, Colorado State University Extension says, and quick-frozen herbs keep up to a year if well packaged.⁶ You’ll often read that frozen cilantro turns to slimy mush because of enzymes. We found no source that measures this for cilantro.

Prepare. Wash, drain and pat dry.
Tray freeze. Strip the leaves off the stems, spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze, then pack them into bags or containers.
Cubes. You can freeze herbs in ice cube trays half filled with water, then top them off the next day so they’re fully covered. Oklahoma State University Extension also freezes herbs in oil, 1/3 to 1/2 cup of oil to 2 cups of chopped herbs.⁸
Wrap well. Double-wrap strong-smelling herbs in foil or use freezer jars so the smell doesn’t spread.
Use from frozen. Don’t thaw herbs before adding them to cooked dishes.

For more, see can you freeze cilantro.

Cilantro in oil: a safety rule

Cilantro sauces, pestos and herb oils made with fresh cilantro are fresh herbs in oil. Oregon State University Extension says homemade mixtures like these must be refrigerated and used within 4 days or frozen, because low-acid foods in oil create an oxygen-free environment where Clostridium botulinum can grow.⁹ By that rule, as we read it, a thawed oil cube is back on the 4-day clock.

Drying cilantro

You can dry cilantro, but ATK puts it among the herbs that get much weaker once dried.³ Research on drying coriander leaves concluded that fresh leaves are the best source of their aroma compounds, and found that finishing the drying with hot air at 50°C lowered aroma quality.¹⁰ If you want to try, the general herb advice applies: dry small bunches, since big ones can mold, or use a dehydrator at 95 to 115°F.¹¹ The leaves are ready when they crumble. For the full method, see how to dry cilantro. For how dried compares in the pot, see dried cilantro vs fresh.

Using stored cilantro

Add cilantro at the very end of cooking so it doesn’t overcook. That goes for frozen cilantro too: stir it into a soup, curry or sauce just before serving.

Not yet measured

A controlled comparison of the jar method and damp paper towels in a home refrigerator.
How long frozen cilantro keeps its aroma, measured on cilantro rather than herbs in general.
Whether changing the jar water on a schedule extends shelf life.

How to Store and Preserve Fresh Cilantro, Fine Gardening. finegardening.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Loaiza and Cantwell, Postharvest physiology and quality of cilantro, HortScience, 1997 (abstract). agris.fao.org · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
When You Should Actually Use Dried Herbs, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Our Guide to Fresh Herbs, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Cilantro, Wisconsin Master Gardener Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension. mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Herbs: Preserving and Using, Fact Sheet 9.335, Colorado State University Extension. ccfruitandnuts.ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Garlic: Safe Methods to Store, Preserve, and Enjoy, ANR Publication 8568, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. ccfruitandnuts.ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩
Freezing Herbs, Oklahoma State University Extension. extension.okstate.edu · Reference work ↩
Herbs and vegetables in oil, SP 50-701, Oregon State University Extension Service. extension.oregonstate.edu · Reference work ↩
Łyczko et al., Foods, 2021. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
Herbs (Drying), National Center for Home Food Preservation. nchfp.uga.edu · Reference work ↩

How to Store Cilantro: The Jar Method, How Long It Really Lasts, and Freezing