Does Tapioca Powder Expire?

To give the most direct answer possible, tapioca powder does expire. 

Your typical home starches and flours like corn starch, tapioca starch, all purpose flour, whole flour etc. have a recommended date for use. 

Which should be considered whenever you’re using any of these ingredients. You’ll find expiration dates on the packaging. 

If you consume expired tapioca starch or other starches and flours, you most likely won’t get sick. Assuming the expiration date was within 1 week or so of consumption. 

To contrast, if you’re consuming starches or flours that are months old, you may or may not end up feeling sick. We highly recommend following the packaging labeled expiration date to be safe. View the FDA guidelines for more info too. 

How Long Does Tapioca Powder Last? 

For typical tapioca starch or tapioca flour you will discover that they last quite a long time. All starches and flours usually will have a long shelf life. 

Usually tapioca powder lasts around 6-12 months at a time, depending on the manufacturer or brand. 

Which is great because how often do people end up using the whole thing after 1 use anyways? We know we don’t, we usually get a few batches of fresh tapioca pearls from it at the very least. 

If you’ve had your tapioca powder sitting in your pantry for too long and you’re questioning whether it’s okay to use, you can always try the sniff test. If there’s no distinct odor to your tapioca powder, you should be safe to use it.

Although we’d advise not going over the expiration date too much, fair warning. Remember to review FDA guidelines if you have more questions. 

How to Store Tapioca Powder 

The best way to store any of your dry kitchen powders like flour or starch is to use air tight containers. Containers that do not facilitate humidity or air circulation is a must. 

If you do not store your tapioca powder correctly, you can risk growing mold on it. And we don’t want to consume this obviously. Or even have it sit in our pantry for too long. 

We’d recommend airtight bags from the following brands like Hefty or Ziploc. Or airtight containers from Vtopmart or Rubbermaid. We haven’t had problems or issues with these thus far. 

If you’ve learned a thing or two about your tapioca powder here, feel free to share this article with your friends. Thanks for reading with us at Talk Boba, if you have any questions simply ask us below. Or you can ask us on our growing subreddit community. 

Here are related tapioca articles that you might enjoy too.

• How to Make Tapioca Pearls from Scratch at Home 
• What is Tapioca? 
• How to Make Brown Sugar Syrup for Boba Pearls