A disorganized fridge can easily become a big problem. A messy fridge can consequently threaten your health and budget, from forgotten leftovers to missing ingredients. The fantastic news is that you can totally avoid these troubles by using a number of simple organizational strategies. Keeping your fridge organized makes the most of your available space and keeps everything fresh and ready to eat.
Clean and Sort
The first step to organizing a fridge is cleaning and sorting all your items. Meticulously pull everything out of the refrigerator, at the same time checking for expiration dates, mold, or other signs of spoiled food as you go. Get rid of anything that is past the expiration date or looks horrible. For leftovers or food in plastic storage containers, if you’re not very sure how long it has been in there, just throw it out. Concerning your food, it’s more appropriate to err on the side of caution.
With everything out of the fridge, take the time to clean its interiors carefully. Wash and dry all surfaces, including inside drawers and bins, using hot, soapy water or a mild bleach solution. In this manner, you will start out with a clean fridge for your new organization system.
Label Everything
The next step to an organized fridge is to keep an inventory of how long your food has been there. While it’s true that lots of of pre-packaged foods will come with an expiration or sell-by date on them, for fruits and veggies or food that you bring home or that is leftover from meals, you have to have a system to keep track of when it was added to the fridge and when it will need to be thrown out.
One simple yet effective idea is to use a dry-erase marker to write the dates of meals and takeout on the container. You could certainly do the same thing for other perishables inside of your fridge. By noting both when you brought them home and when they need to be used, you can always ensure that you are using up the groceries you buy before they spoil and avoid eating leftovers that can make you sick.
Use Containers
Keeping loose items tidy in a fridge, more particularly fruits, vegetables, and even small condiment jars, can be rather difficult. Deem using clear storage bins to group loose items together to prevent clutter and ensure you have everything you’re hunting for. On top of that, weigh getting quality reusable food storage containers with tight-fitting lids. This can help you store food safely and reduce waste by reusing your containers regularly.
You can similarly use a dry-erase marker on the bins and storage containers to keep track of the date things were procured. Using bins and storage containers in your fridge will free up space for more oversized items elsewhere and make tracking the expiration dates of perishable things simple and convenient.
Develop a System
As you set about replacing items, it’s crucial to develop a system for storing everything. This has two benefits: first, you will always easily know where things are, and second, it can make your food last longer and be safer. In particular, keep in mind that certain items should always be kept in certain places.
Meat should on, all occasions, be kept on the lowest shelf to avoid dripping and contaminating other food. Likewise, never store milk in the fridge door – it can spoil speedily when exposed to warm air so many times. You can also separate your fruits and vegetables and use trays for really messy items to prevent spills.
Plan Ahead
When your fridge is clean and organized, the paramount thing you can actualize is to plan to keep it that way. Even the most organized fridge will need to be totally cleaned up, and old items thrown out once in a while. Evaluate creating a cleaning schedule to make absolutely sure that your fridge stays organized. For instance, you could select a day of the week or month to go through everything, rotating and updating your fresh produce and wiping down fridge surfaces. By conducting this routine regularly, you can avoid the dreaded deep-clean and purge of your fridge (and freezer), a job very few do enjoy doing.
By applying these helpful tips, you can keep your fridge clean and organized week after week with less stress than you thought imaginable!
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Originally Published on Nov 12, 2021
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