How to Store Cilantro So It Lasts Longer

Cilantro, unlike basil, does well in the cold. The colder it is kept (short of freezing), the longer it lasts, and the best home method is the simplest: stems in a jar of water, leaves loosely covered, in the refrigerator.¹² Expect its aroma to fade before its looks do.¹ For longer than a few weeks, freeze it for cooking; dried cilantro is a poor substitute.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 test²	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 figures vary widely, and they come from different conditions. We have not averaged them.

Source	Conditions	Result
Loaiza and Cantwell, UC Davis, 1997¹	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)²	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

Two practical points follow. First, temperature matters: each step from 0 to 7.5°C cut the study’s shelf life sharply.¹ A home refrigerator 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 rather than the door (our judgment). Second, looks are not everything: the UC Davis study found the typical cilantro aroma dropped after two weeks even when the leaves still looked good.¹

The jar method

This is the method with the best home result.²

Trim the stem ends.²
Stand the bunch in a small jar with water.²
Cover the leaves loosely with a plastic bag.²
Refrigerate, and check every few days that there is plenty of water.²

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

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.⁴ ATK says delicate herbs must be kept moist or they wilt, but should not touch liquid, which encourages rot.⁴ That conflicts 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 when stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator,² but did not 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 will not work as a garnish. Colorado State University Extension says frozen herbs go limp when thawed and are best in cooked dishes, and that quick-frozen herbs keep up to a year if well packaged.⁶ A common claim says frozen cilantro turns to slimy mush because of enzymes; we found no source that measures this for cilantro.

Prepare. Wash, drain and pat dry.⁶
Tray freeze. Strip the leaves from the stems, spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze,⁸ then pack them into bags or containers.
Cubes. Herbs can be frozen in ice cube trays half filled with water, then topped off the next day so they are fully covered.⁶ 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. Oklahoma State advises double-wrapping strong-smelling herbs in foil or using freezer jars so the odor doesn’t spread.⁸
Use from frozen. Do not thaw herbs before adding them to cooked dishes.⁸

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,⁹ because low-acid foods in oil create an oxygen-free environment where Clostridium botulinum can grow.⁹ By that rule, a thawed oil cube falls back under the 4-day limit (our reading).

Drying cilantro

You can dry cilantro, but ATK puts it among the herbs that are much weaker in flavor once dried.³ Research on drying coriander leaves concluded that fresh material is the most valuable 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 guidance applies: dry small bunches, since large amounts can mold,¹¹ or use a dehydrator at 95 to 115°F.¹¹ The leaves are ready when they crumble.¹¹ For the full method, see how to dry cilantro, and for how dried compares in the pot, dried cilantro vs fresh.

Using stored cilantro

Wisconsin Extension suggests adding cilantro at the very end of cooking to keep it from overcooking.⁵ That suits 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.

Loaiza and Cantwell, Postharvest physiology and quality of cilantro, HortScience, 1997 (abstract). agris.fao.org · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
How to Store and Preserve Fresh Cilantro, Fine Gardening. finegardening.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰
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 ↩⁴
Cilantro, Wisconsin Master Gardener Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension. mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
Herbs: Preserving and Using, Fact Sheet 9.335, Colorado State University Extension. ccfruitandnuts.ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
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 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Herbs and vegetables in oil, SP 50-701, Oregon State University Extension Service. extension.oregonstate.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Łyczko et al., Foods, 2021. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
Herbs (Drying), National Center for Home Food Preservation. nchfp.uga.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

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