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How to Organize Your Fridge and Freezer

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Organizing your fridge might be the last thing on your mind—until you open your door and have an avalanche of food fall on top of you. Keeping your fridge and freezer organized is an important part of your cleaning routine. It helps prevent you from wasting money, eating expired foods and you'll have a cleaner fridge (and conscience to boot)! Organizing your fridge isn't as hard as you think. With a few minutes, you'll be on your way to a nicely organized fridge and freezer.

The fridge

  • As you're emptying your fridge, toss old food or anything that's unrecognizable and sort the items into different categories on your counter (keep all salad dressings in together, condiments together, etc.).

     

  • If you buy drinks in bulk, transfer the gallon-sized beverages into easier-to-pour carafes to make use of the vertical space in your fridge. The originals can be moved to a secondary fridge if you have one. If you keep bottles of water in the fridge at all times, stack them in a pyramid shape using a rack or shimmy them up against the wall to prevent an avalanche.

     

  • Putting a lazy Susan in your fridge will help keep sauces, jars and bottles from hiding in the back of the fridge.

     

  • When putting things back in your refrigerator, you want to remember not to over-stuff it. The cold air needs enough space to properly circulate and chill the food.

How to store food

Not everything needs to go in the refrigerator, but the things that do, are better kept in certain areas and packaging:

  • Eggs absorb odors, so keep them in an airtight container or bin. They should also be stored in the coldest section of the refrigerator and not the door which has temperature fluctuations.

     

  • Vegetables, except for lettuce, should be kept inside the crisper drawers with the correct humidity settings for fruits and vegetables. Lettuce should be in its own moisture-draining home.

     

  • Keep cold cuts in the deli drawer, individually contained.

     

  • Dairy products should be kept in the coldest area of the refrigerator, which is usually the top shelf.

     

  • Keep any fresh meats, fish or poultry in its store wrapping also in the coldest area. If the item didn't come in a Styrofoam tray, slide a plate underneath it to catch any drips.

The freezer

  • Empty your freezer in stages and work with one portion at a time so nothing is sitting outside of the freezer for too long.

     

  • Condense and clean up the items. How many bags of frozen peas do you have in your fridge? Put them all in one bag and seal it.

     

  • Group similar items together, just like when you did your refrigerator. Group frozen vegetables together and frozen meats together and another group of frozen treats, etc.

     

  • Put the small groups in containers for easy-to-reach storage. You'll save time when you're cooking, which could be the difference between a fabulous meal and a burnt one.

     

  • Raw meats that haven't completely frozen yet should be kept at the bottom of your freezer to help prevent any raw meat juices from dripping onto frozen foods that don't need to be cooked, like frozen berries.

Tips for keeping them organized

  • Use labels to note when containers were originally opened, what leftovers are in each container or how fresh the strawberries are.

     

  • Use matching storage containers so everything is uniform and can easily be stacked without falling.

     

  • Keep a pen and notepad near your refrigerator and freezer so you can quickly label items or make notes about what you need to buy.

Doing all the dirty work of organizing your refrigerator and freezer may not sound like a time-saver, but it will save you from searching the inside of your fridge for 20 minutes looking for that jar of pickles you thought you had.

Ana M. Ferrer  Posted by Ana M. Ferrer on April 11, 2014

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