The Best Way to Organize a Fridge? It’s awe-inspiring to look at a well-organized, color-coordinated fridge. If you get lost in the peppers above, try not to get lost.
That’s not all, though. A well-kept fridge also saves time and money. In order to make grocery shopping and mealtimes more efficient, you need to know what’s inside. This means that there will be less food waste and unpleasant smells.
To start, experts from the Test Kitchen suggest putting the foods you reach for the most at the top of the list. From there, group things together and put them in clear containers (key word: clear) for a more uniform look.
The rest is yours: Make sure you have a lot of different ways to store your soda cans, snacks, and wine.
When you put things on shelves, think about what is best for both you and the food. Keep milk on the back of the bottom shelf where it’s the coldest. Most people keep milk on the top shelf or in the door.
Young children should be able to reach their favorite snacks without making a mess. You can make a separate bin for each child or put all the snacks together in one place for people to choose from because, well, sharing is caring.The Best Way to Organize a Fridge
Older items should be moved to the front of the fridge when you buy something new, like a gallon of milk. This way, they can be used before the expiration date. It’s important to keep an eye out for leftovers, not just a nose. In one to two days, throw fish away, meat after two to three days, and veggies or grains after five to seven days. Toss them after that time.
The Best Way to Organize a Fridge Upper Shelf Tips
Putting raw meat or vegetables on upper shelves in your fridge will make them more dangerous. Leftovers, drinks, and ready-to-eat foods like yogurt, cheese, and deli meats are the best things to put on the top shelves of your fridge.
Make a “Eat Me First” box for food that is about to go bad
The boxes you bought are still there. If you want to eat one of them first, write “Eat Me First” on it and put anything that is about to go bad in it. Is an item bad or not? If you don’t know for sure, you should be careful. In the event that you can, label all leftovers with the date they were made and look at this chart from Foodsafety.gov to see how long they will last, then toss them in the trash. The Best Way to Organize a Fridge
When you want to find food quickly, use a Lazy Susan to help you
As time goes on, food can get lost in the back of your fridge. It can stay there for a long time until it’s past its use-by date. Keep all of your food products close at hand with a lazy Susan! Lazy Susans aren’t just for the spice cabinet. They can be used in the fridge as well. You can keep things like open jars of food, snacks, or condiments on top, and you can spin a disk to reach them.
Hang Baskets on the Wall to Save Space
Suction cups make baskets that stick to the side of your fridge so you can put things in them. They are great for putting small things in the fridge that would otherwise get lost. Put string cheese, small cups of hummus, or pre-made lunch meat and cheese rollups in there, too! If you have a fridge, just stick the basket on the inside of the wall.
Hacks for the bottom shelf
When the top shelf is in order, you can move on to the lower shelves and do the same. Because they are below the ready-to-eat foods, they can be kept here. It’s important to store things like raw meats on the lowest shelf with a lot of care.
Only if they are there can you store them there. It’s not hard to store meat, but here are some tips for things on the lower shelves.
Because they belong together.
If you want to keep things that go together in clear baskets, you can. This way, you can find them quickly and be ready to pick them up.
Use File Organizers to Keep Snacks Safe
Most paperwork these days is done digitally, so file boxes are a thing of the past and are no longer used. It’s just that these boxes are the right shape to store all kinds of snacks. You can put everything from small containers of chopped vegetables to yogurts, pouches of applesauce, and pouch drinks in the fridge to keep them fresh. If you want to be more organized, you can label them to do that even better.
Hang Bagged Items with Curtain Ring Clips
Many fridges have wire shelves or bars that you can put things on. You can hang bagged items like shredded cheese or lettuce from the edge of your shelves to save space below. This kind of curtain clip will need rings. Put the curtain rings on and hang your rolled bags as you need.
The Best Way to Organize a Fridge – Crisper Drawer Tips
If you want to keep certain foods fresh for a long time, you might want to keep the humidity or temperature in the crispers, which are the drawers at the bottom of most refrigerators. When you store your food in the crisper, there’s a skill to it, because some foods need more humidity and some need less. You can use these humidity controls to keep fruits and vegetables fresh, but make sure you know what goes where!
With the help of paper towels, you can make sure that the bottom is clean
Crisper drawers can be some of the most unpleasant places to clean in your fridge. They can be hard to reach and dirty. Keep them clean for longer by putting a layer of paper towels at the bottom of the drawers before you put fruits and vegetables in them.
Hacks for the door
The door of the refrigerator is the part of the fridge that gets the most heat, so only condiments should be kept there. This way, the refrigerator stays cool. Putting eggs and milk near the door is a good idea. It isn’t the best place for them. Keep them in a cooler part of the fridge.
Condiments, sauces, butter, and other less-perishable items are great for door storage, but that doesn’t mean that it should be messy. Keep your fridge doors clean with these tips.
Keep the same things together in each door divider and put a sticker or magnet on the outside of the divider to make it easy to find what you need. Like items include sauces (hot sauce, soy, etc.), sandwich spreads (mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, relish), or other unique items (olives, pesto, tapenade).
In the past, we talked about how knowing how to use the humidity settings on your crisper would help your fruits and veggies last longer. Most fridges let you set the humidity level, so set one drawer to high humidity and another to low. You can do this with most fridges.
Things that can rot should go in the drawer with a low humidity level. This includes fruits and vegetables that make ethylene gas, like apples, pears, avocados, and most fruits, as well as other foods that do this. Ethylene gas comes out of some fruits and some vegetables.
It makes many foods ripen and go bad faster. In the high-humidity drawer, you should put leafy greens like spinach, arugula, and herbs, as well as other plants. Because of the moisture, the vegetables will stay crisper longer, and they’ll stay that way.
Check out this guide from The Kitchn for help with that.
Use an Egg Carton to Keep Condiments Safe and Clean
Place an egg carton at the bottom of any section where you are putting condiments in bottles and you want to keep them safe. If you want to store things like ketchup or mustard in the egg cartons, you can put them on top of each other. This will keep them all in order and cut down on waste because all of the liquid will be close to the bottle’s top. Never shake or tap your condiments again!
It’s time to fill one of the lower door shelves with drinks for your kids
Create a “refuel zone” for kids on the bottom shelf. Fill it with drinks for kids or quick snacks, like yogurt, that you can take with you. When your kids are thirsty, show them that they can get a drink and keep it ready for them.
The cooking process will be faster and easier if you clean your fridge every few days. These simple steps can help you do things like get the ranch dressing or some baby carrots to eat quickly. People with kids get extra points because the snack stations are sure to make them happy! Take a breather now, and enjoy the “fruits” of your work.