How To Simplify (And Organize) A Pantry
Posted on July 21, 2010 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Clutter,Organization,Simplification
Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.
I took some time this past week to tackle my pantry. Over the past months it has grown to be a mass of cluttered foodstuffs, making it almost impossible for me to find anything or even know what is in there. While I thought it would be a huge job, it turned out only take about two hours, and now I can find everything I have in the closet.
Reorganizing a pantry can seem like a daunting job, but with a few simple steps, it will go very easily.
Getting Set Up
To clean the pantry, I pulled out the trash can and put in a new bag. I also put the compost bucket nearby, and a pan of soapy water. I also had a bin to put recycleable items.
The trash can is to hold things that need to be thrown away. The compost bucket will hold vegetables that need to go, and the soapy water is to swish out the recycleable containers before I put the containers in the recycling bin.
Approach methodically
One of the worst ways to approach what is essentially decluttering is to start pulling things out willy-nilly. By breaking the pantry down into small sections, cleaning and reorganizing will seem less overwhelming.
I work from the top down, for the simple reason that as I clean, dust will fall to the lower areas via gravity. That means I am not re-dirtying things I have already cleaned.
Clean out expired, weird ingredients
I often buy ingredients I wouldn’t normally use because they are called for in a recipe. And either I don’t make the recipe, or I decide to skip the ingredients because I realize I have no chance of sneaking them by my family.
Other times food will expire. I found this to be particularly true of my “emergency” shelf, because I had not rotated the food into common usage on time.
For these two situations, I pull the food out. If the food is expired, I will toss it in the trash (or compost heap if it is veggies) and swish and recycle the container. If the food is not expired, I put it aside for the food pantry.
Sort
I like to keep my pantry sorted by like items. For instance, the short arm of the L of my pantry, top shelf, is where I keep the disposables. Paper plates, paper napkins, paper towels and disposable silverware. The next shelf down holds the condiments: wines, vinegars, oils and the backup items for ketchup, mustard and relish.
Some groupings from my pantry:
- Rices
- Pasta and sauces
- Baking mixes and baking ingredients (nuts, chips, etc)
- Cereals
- Spices and seasonings
- Dressings and mixes
- Breads
- Snacks
- Canned goods
- PB & J , nut butters, jams and preserves
- Sundae bar (for make-your-own sundaes)
Replace Like Items Together As They Make Sense
Since my pantry is pretty much set up as groups and I was only doing a cleaning/purge, I put misplaced items with their fellows as I went.
However, if this is the first time you are doing your pantry, you might want to group like items together outside of the area before putting them back in.
Use Helpers
I’m not talking about Hamburger Helper here. I’m talking about things that make it easier to group like items together.
My canned goods are stored on a large turntable that makes an inaccessible corner accessible. My spices are stored on a double-level turntable to make it easy to access all the bottles. I use old shoe boxes and dollar store baskets to hold like items, like chips and snacks.
With a bit of sorting, tossing, and cleaning dust bunnies, I was able to simplify the pantry and get it into shape so I can find everything very quickly and easily.
Photo by lu_lu
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Comments (1)
I’ve noticed as I’ve transitioned my family’s diet from one with too many packaged convenience “machine cuisine” foods to a diet of primarily home-prepared Real Food, my pantry organization has improved, too, without much effort on my part. Now that I have little or no pre-prepared foods to store, there are far fewer boxes and bags in the pantry. We’ve ditched grains entirely, most notably wheat, which saves LOTS of pantry space (more than half), keeps the place clear of crumb spills, and best of all, no more pantry moths!
Most of my pantry space is now dedicated to storing food prep equipment: a foley food mill, the ice cream maker, a yogurt maker, the bonus food processor bowl, spice mills, and so on.
I do keep some food in the pantry, too, mostly packaged in glass jars or bottles, but there are a few cans, too (salmon, tuna, coconut milk, etc.). I also keep dark chocolate bars for snacks & cooking, as well as several types of cocoa powder. I buy coffee beans weekly from a local roaster, so I don’t need to store coffee in the pantry anymore. I keep a case or two of wine on hand in the back of the narrow pantry (under the stairs) on a wooden wine rack.
I installed “back-of-the-door” shallow wire shelving units on one wall for cans, jars, & bottle items. The narrow shelf depth (there is a 4″ front “fence” on each shelf to prevent items from falling off) saves space in the narrow pantry and makes finding items as they are rarely more than two items deep. The narrow shelving also discourages me from overstocking items that might otherwise become “lost” or forgotten.
I store bagged and soft package dry items like dried wild mushrooms, sea vegetable, dried tomatoes, shredded unsweetened coconut, & coconut flour, tea leaves, in glasslock brand (no affiliation) sealed storage containers, both for no-leak/spill ease of storing/stacking standard shapes and to keep the food fresh and safe from pests (though unlike grain foods, these don’t seem to attract pests). The clear glass storage containers allow for easier identification of contents (a huge boon in the fridge too, esp for the “refrigerator-blind” males in my family).
Now that I’ve reduced the volume and variety of my pantry food items, it’s easier to keep the stock rotated and I rarely find out-of-date items (though because I buy a number of items in bulk or dry fresh items myself, I need to date those manually). If we are no longer consuming something (canned vegetables, canned fruit, bottles of corn syrup/pancake syrup, vegetable oils, canned beans, etc., I drop them off at the local CRC food pantry).
With our dietary changes, the pantry easily stays manageable, but I need to reconsider my fresh food organization, as we always have a lot of fresh food on hand. I am a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) member and I subscribe to a weekly box of seasonal fresh produce from a local farm. Some items are more perishable and need to be used very quickly (greens and berries) while some can keep a long time in the crisper bin (root veg, cabbage, etc.). We live in a mild climate so the CSa operates year round and the produce share is abundant. My refrigerator often becomes overloaded with produce especially if one or more of us had meal commitments outside the home during the week and the previous week’s box of produce isn’t consumed prior to the new week’s box arrival. I share sometimes with friends, neighbors, etc., as well as dropping some off at the CRC food pantry, but sometimes I leave an item too long and it ends up in the worm compost bin. If I am rushed on veg box day, I sometimes neglect to sort through the produce in the fridge before I add the new items. Then we have fridge gridlock.
I do “preserve” and enhance some of the fresh foods with lacto-fermentation and culturing (cabbage into sauerkraut, etc.) but that also requires refrigeration space and stock rotation. I tend not to can foods (though I know how) as I prefer to consume items fresh or preserved with lacto-fermentation and culturing (much older food preservation technique than canning).
I have a spare freezer, too, for storage of homemade broth; bones and veg trimmings waiting to be made into broth; extra soup and “planned-over meals”; bulk meat purchases (half & quarter sides, etc.); starter cultures for cheese and yogurt; frozen fruit; pesto; the ice cream freezer bowl and homemade ice cream; etc. The freezer is quite full most of the time, too, so I need to work on its organization, too, as stock rotation is also important here. The bulk meat packages are labeled and dated on the paper wrap by the butcher and I use plastic ventilated baskets/bins to keep some semblance of order to the shelves, but it could be better organized. Every time I go through the freezer contents to make space before a fall bulk meat delivery, I find items that I forgot about or should have used earlier.
Do you have tips for fridge and freezer organization? My situation is probably somewhat different than most, as I don’t have many “tidy” freezer items like rectangular boxes of easy to identify frozen heat & serve meals/snacks, bottles of commercial salad dressings, or flavored yogurt cups to organize.