How to organize your kitchen pantry in 3 simple steps!
The kitchen is the heart of the home- especially when you have teenagers! When my family gets home in the evenings, we often gather in the kitchen. Food is always a major topic. “What’s for dinner?”, “Do we have snacks?”, and “Where are those chips you bought?”
Do these questions sound familiar?
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As a busy working mom, it’s hard to keep up with everything, and a messy pantry makes life that much harder. It’s so frustrating when you open the pantry to start making dinner and realize you are missing key ingredients, or that the ingredients are now expired. It is super irritating, especially after a long day at the office when all you want to do it sit down and zone out!
Organize your pantry to reduce your stress and save you time and money in the long run. An organized pantry helps you quickly and easily determine what food you have in stock and reduces your likelihood of buying duplicate or unnecessary products.
I try to simplify any project I do into 3 steps if possible. This is the method I used to organize my pantry:
Step 1: Remove & Sort
Take everything out of your pantry and sort the items into categories as you go. Place canned vegetables together, pastas together, baking together, etc. Don’t worry about getting all of the categories perfect- that will come later.
While you are removing and sorting all of your items, check your items for expiration. If expired, discard. If it is something that is not expired, but you no longer use it, either discard it or donate it to your local food bank.
HELPFUL TIPS:
Pull your trash can next to the pantry door, so that as you remove items, you can immediately discard anything expired.
For those hard to read expiration dates, use a permanent marker to write the date bigger on the lid or label.
Create a list of all the expired pantry items you need to replace.
Step 2: Clean & Arrange
Do a quick cleaning after you remove everything from your pantry. Wipe the shelves and sweep the floor. You must clean before you can organize!
Think about your pantry arrangement after you have cleaned it. Look at all of your different categories you have sorted your items into. How will you arrange them in your pantry?
Here are some things to think about as you determine how to arrange your pantry:
Do I use this item often? If so, you will want to place it in an area that is easily accessible. Place your frequently used items at eye level.
Is this something that my children access often? You will want to place snacks and breakfast items on lower level shelves for easy kid access!
Think about location within the pantry. Place your items in locations that keep with the flow of your routines and kitchen. For example, my spices are located on the left side of my pantry on a shelf that is eye-level. The left side is closest to my stove. I can easily open the pantry door, grab my spice and turn to the stove.
HELPUL TIPS:
Start your pantry arrangement by gathering all of the empty bins, baskets and containers you have available. Play around with arranging your pantry with those empty containers first. You may realize you need smaller or bigger containers than what you have on-hand based on how you grouped your items and where your items need to be located within the pantry.
Step 3: Categorize & Organize
Use bins, baskets, and other containers to organize your pantry goods.
This is the fun part! Make your pantry a space that is visually appealing and functional for you and your family! I used a mixture of clear bins, baskets, air-tight containers and a spice rack to organize all of my items. My items came from Target and Amazon, but choose containers that fit your style and budget. The possibilities are limitless!
Label your containers with easy to read labels.
I recommend using temporary labels for the first week or so (think post-it notes) to make sure you are happy with your categories. You may decide to change the label name for some items or move items around based on use. Once your bins/categories are finalized, then label them with pretty, permanent labels. I purchased clear, pantry labels from Hobby Lobby, placed them on pre-cut tags (also Hobby Lobby) and then hot-glued the tags onto my bins and baskets. Amazon has some great pantry and spice labels too. If you are really crafty and have the time, make your own!
HELPFUL TIPS:
Baskets hide clutter or items that you don’t use often. For example, for baking items, I have one basket that holds all of my cupcake liners, icing, food coloring, etc. Whenever I am ready to bake, I just pull out my baking basket and everything I need is at my fingertips. I used baskets on many of my shelves to keep things contained and hidden, like paper goods and pastas.
Use clear bins for snacks, breakfast and other items that your family frequently looks for. Clear bins are also a great way to keep food organized for smaller children and allows you to see when snacks are getting low. Be sure to take the snacks out of the boxes they came in and place the individually wrapped snacks in the clear bins. If you kids are like mine, they will put an empty box back on the shelf and you don’t know the snacks are gone!
Spice racks keep all of your spices neatly organized and easily viewed. Clear jars enable you to see when your spice is almost out!
Use air-tight containers for sugar, flour, salt, grains and cereals.
A lazy susan turntable is a great option to hold oils and cooking sprays in the corner section of your pantry. Bonus: The turntable also protects the oils from dripping or leaking onto your clean pantry shelves!
That’s it! You’re done! You now have a clean and organized kitchen pantry! Keep your pantry clean and organized to save you time, money and frustration! It’s as easy as 1-2-3: organize your pantry!
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