Organizing your kitchen has a lot of benefits! Here are just a few:
Benefits of Organizing Your Kitchen
1. Safety
Especially important for kids!
2. Aesthetics
Less clutter means you’ll feel more calm, less stressed, and happier.
3. More effective storage
You can maximize your storage space. Everything needs a place. Looking for stuff is a very stressful waste of time!
4. Saves money
You’ll know what you have and won’t buy stuff you don’t need.
5. Saves time
Everything will take less time if your kitchen is organized: planning, shopping, unpacking, and preparing meals-and do ahead prep, for sure!
6. Makes it easier for kids (and others) to help in the kitchen and teaches kids (and others, haha) them responsibility
A big part of having a happier kitchen is making it easy for your kids to help you!
7. Allows you to meal plan more effectively
You’ll see what you already have, which is critical in meal planning.
8. You can see what you have/use.
Sometimes kitchen cupboards are packed to the brim with equipment that is no longer needed or even used. Throwing away broken products or donating items you no longer use will free up more valuable space in your own kitchen cabinets. This will allow you to organize your essential kitchen appliances much more effectively.
9. There’s less to clean.
The less ‘stuff’ you have on your benches, window-sills, in cupboards, on shelves – the less you have to clean! Consider what you could get rid of/move to make cleaning the kitchen an easier process.
10. You can invite guests over.
You can have guests over without fear of being embarrassed by your messy kitchen. Less stress if someone arrives unexpectedly!
11. You want to spend time in it
This all adds up to making the kitchen a happier place to be. You (and your family) will be spending a lot of time there and being happy in a calming space goes a long way towards reducing kitchen stress.
General Principles for Organizing Your Kitchen
1. Throw out what you don’t need.
2. Group like things together.
3. Label all food items with a date and a description if not obvious.
4. Labels need to face out and not be hidden.
5. Put things close to where you use them.
6. Put least used items in the hardest to reach area..
7. Keep cold items that are oldest towards the front of the refrigerator/freezer.
8. Always arrange things to that you can see what you have-don’t small items behind big ones.
9. Know what you have-keep an inventory of your freezer.
10. Put heavy items where they’re easiest to access.
Organize Materials for Storage
Organizing your kitchen requires storing food in the right container in the right place. You have to know where the container is and how to get to it easily! This might seem easier said than done, but there is hope. There are lots of ideas for organizing and blogs devoted to that, but I can tell you this-you HAVE to figure out a way to keep those containers so they’re actually useful to you. Keep wraps and storage bags handy. The more efficient you are, the less frustrated you’ll be in the kitchen. I use plastic magazine holders for lids and stack the matching glass containers below on a shelf.
Prep Area
This area ideally is close to the sink. Unfortunately, mine is not! Life would be easier if it were, but do the best you can. I do make fewer trips to the sink/disposal/trash can when I put out a scrap bowl when I start to prep anything-ingredients for a meal, items from the farmer’s market, or even dividing up large packages of chicken/meat for the freezer. Large cutting boards are helpful, kept close by, and all my knives are on a magnetic strip on the wall above my counter.
Organize the Pantry
I’m not the greatest at this, but I’m making progress. I do like the Oxo acrylic containers for nuts and I have them in a shallow rectangular plastic basket from the Dollar Tree. The concept of “drawers” has really helped. I have some very deep shelves in my pantry and putting items in the baskets that act like drawers has really helped. There are hundreds of tips online for pantry organization. The goal is to get rid of bags and boxes and make it easy to see what you have! Organize so that the oldest items are in the front and inspect regularly. There are lazy susans, tiered shelves, shallow baskets, and other shelf add-ons that can make your life much easier. You can find suggestions for containers in my product list. Here are the basics-more on that later.
- Do’s and Don’ts
- Place older containers in front to use first.
- Store foods away from kitchen chemicals
- Invest in containers for dry foods, like rice and pasta.
- Don’t store cornmeal or whole wheat flour in the pantry-put the freezer in air tight containers.
- Don’t store opened maple syrup in the pantry-put it in the refrigerator.
- If in doubt, throw it out!
Organize the Refrigerator
The biggest challenge with my refrigerator is the wide range of temperatures in it. I really should have about four thermometers in different areas. It’s been a lot of trial and error and frozen foods that shouldn’t be frozen (think lettuce), but it’s shown me how critical it is to be aware of temperature. Right now, I just want to emphasize that you HAVE to know the general temperature of the different areas of your refrigerator. 40 degrees is the magic number for foods that need to be refrigerated. All refrigerators are different, so don’t assume anything. The temperature of the different areas of your refrigerator determines for the most part, how it should be organized. Here are the general guidelines. My post BUILDING THE HEALTHY REFRIGERATOR will go into this in more detail:
- The door-warmest part, most fluctuations in temperature-No eggs, but condiments or well preserved foods are OK
- Upper shelves, usually consistent in temperature-but what temperature? Use a thermometer to find out. Use for dairy, drinks, containers of leftovers, and anything you want to be able to see first like healthy snacks!
- Middle shelves-hard to say. Use a thermometer to find out. Lettuce freezes on my middle shelves.
- Bottom shelf-often the coldest, think meat drawer; meat, fish, maybe eggs, although I’ve frozen boiled eggs there, so watch out! Raw eggs should not be stored above 50 degrees, and most sources say 40-45 degrees.
- Crisper drawers-humidity havens. Good for storing produce. Do not store meats with produce. Often there is a meat drawer. You should separate fruits and vegetables into ethylene producing ones and ones that are sensitive..
- On top of the fridge-very warm and Not for food! Maybe crackers?
Some super items for organizing your refrigerator are clear bins that can act as drawers, a lazy susan, small containers to group like items together, plastic cups for the doors to hold small items like a tube of ginger or garlic or even a bottom half of an egg carton in the door to hold items best stored upside down.
Organize the Freezer
The biggest thing I can say about organizing your freezer is FIRST IN FIRST OUT. This should drive your organization. You can’t do this unless you know what you have. My refrigerator has a bottom freezer and I have a small chest freezer from Sams Club. That has been a lifesaver! I finally grouped all my different items together. Why did this take me so long? I have no idea! When I realized how frustrating “digging for buried treasure was”, I finally admitted that something had to be done. First I figured out how many different baskets from Ikea would make the most of my space. Then I grouped like things together and put things I used the least towards the bottom. Label everything! Keep an inventory. You’ll have to experiment, but whatever you do-organize it…it will be a big stress reducer.
I hope you found this guide helpful. You’ll find more detail in my post BUILDING THE HEALTHY REFRIGERATOR. The goal of organizing your kitchen is always food safety, less waste, and less stress in less time. And you’ll be eating better, too!