In order to rapidly and accurately predict the shelf life of river crab sauce, prepared from river crab processing waste, during storage at 25 ℃, river crab sauce was stored at 37, 45 or 55 ℃ to accelerate its quality deterioration. A first-order kinetic model was established with total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) as the dependent variable. The predicted value of shelf life was determined by the kinetic model and the Arrhenius equation. The results showed that the activation energy (E_a) and pre-exponential factor (k₀) obtained from the Arrhenius equation were 29.28 kJ/mol and 1.443 × 10³, respectively, and the shelf life of river crab sauce at 25 ℃ was calculated to be 183 days.