Pantry Organizing

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Organizing Your Pantry

Pantry Organizing Tips for Neatness and Efficiency

A neat, organized pantry makes your life run more smoothly. You should be able to look into your pantry and know in about a minute what you have and what you need. Most of us, instead, see a jumbled mess of precariously balanced canned goods in no particular order. There are probably boxes in the back from 10 years ago that you don’t even want to think about.

If this sounds at all familiar, keep reading. Pantry organizing can be fast and simple! The greatest thing about organizing your pantry is that it creates its own maintenance system, and you’ll never have to go back to opening the door only to have cans falling at your feet!

Don’t think that pantry organizing is unnecessary. Most people picture alphabetized vegetables!. That would not only be a tremendous waste of time, but it wouldn’t help you at all!

Organizing is all about efficiency. Everything should be where it makes the most sense for you to have it. It really is a lot more important than you’d think. It makes grocery shopping a lot faster and more efficient. You’ll know exactly what to put on your shopping list, and you’ll never again buy three of everything because you’re just not sure if you have it at home. Dinner time will also go much more smoothly. Instead of looking blankly at the pantry with no ideas of what to make, the ingredients will jump right out at you, and you’ll have it started in no time.

De-clutter Your Pantry & Get Ready To Toss The Junk

The first step in organizing your pantry is to drag a big trash can over by the pantry. You should also have a countertop cleaned off for this exercise. Simply go through your pantry, taking everything out one item at a time. Look at the dates on the items. If it’s expired or you haven’t used it in a year, throw it into the trash. If it’s still good and something you use regularly, put it on the counter. If there is a nearby food donation program, you can put “still good, but never used items” into that, but unless you’re going to take the items as soon as you’re finished, don’t do it. These items should never go back into your pantry. If you’re going to procrastinate on taking the items right away, just throw them into the trash can! Don’t feel guilty – you will save so much money with an efficient pantry that you will be able to make a monetary donation to charity later. Be sure to check the weight of your trash regularly. Don’t create a trash bag that you can’t lift!

It should take about half an hour to throw things away or put them on the counter. If it takes you longer, you either have way too much food or you’re stressing too much over the “trash or counter” decision. You have to be ruthless. If you’ve never used it, it’s only taking up space and keeping you from having an efficient pantry. Work as quickly as you can, and when in doubt, toss it!

When you put things back in the pantry, do it logically. If you use canned soups, vegetables, and/or fruits every single day, they should be on the easiest shelf to reach. This is usually at eye level, so you can clearly and easily read the cans. All of the canned goods should remain together, with the most used type most easily accessible. For example, if you use canned vegetables for dinner every night, soup occasionally, and canned fruit rarely, you should have the fruit in the back, together, the soup together, and the canned vegetables together right in front.

Organize Your Baking Items

All baking items should be together on one shelf if possible. Flour, sugar, baking powder, box mixes, chocolate chips, etc should remain together. If you bake only occasionally, you can put them on a shelf that might be less accessible. If you bake often, you should choose a good, eye level shelf. Don’t put baking goods on the bottom or top shelves. Bottom shelf flour and sugar is more likely to attract bugs or ants. Top shelf flour can too easily be dropped. Don’t do what most people do with their sugar and flour. Most people stock and organize their pantry so it LOOKS good, not so it’s user-friendly. They put flour and sugar behind the smaller items because it looks better. You should, instead, have sugar and flour in front, preferably to one side, so you can still see the little items. What’s the point of organizing your pantry if every time you get something out of it, you have to move everything to get access to it?

If there are certain items your children and other members of your household get out of the pantry for themselves, make sure those items are the most easily seen and accessible. The last thing you need is someone rearranging everything in your nice, organized pantry because they can’t find what they want.

Everything has its own logical place in your pantry. You’ll get to know exactly where items belong, and if they are missing, you’ll know exactly what it is and how many you need from the store.

If you’re very busy and don’t cook as often as you’d like, find some quick, easy recipes to try. Once you find some that are successful (or already have some in your recipe box), you might want to use a shelf of your pantry for “quick dinner containers.” I also have “quick dessert containers” in my pantry. These are simply little Tupperware or wire containers that have the exact ingredients – everything I need except for refrigerator items – to make the dish, with the recipe in the box. So if I have a quick fix dinner that uses mushroom soup, for example, it will be in my container for that dish in addition to the mushroom soup I have on the soup shelf for other recipes. After you make your quick dinner, check your container to see if it has enough to make the dish again before you put it back into the pantry. If not, and you have the items in your pantry already, restock your container. If you don’t have them, add them to your shopping list. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to come home from a long day at work, have everyone asking what’s for dinner, and be able to pull one of my containers out of the pantry. It can make a bad day turn into an “I am so organized!” kind of day!

Extra pantry organizing tip: Keep a “Pantry Checklist” and a pencil on a string taped to the inside of your pantry door. This doesn’t have to be a beautiful computer printout that you won’t do because it will take too long. It can be a piece of notebook paper. Write down items you always use, and simply jot a slash or check next to the item when it needs to be replaced. Rip the piece of paper off the door and use it as a pantry grocery list. Two checks mean two of the items are needed, etc. Replace the list or just make copies at your office or next time you go to the post office and keep them all on the door.