10 top tips to organise your pantry…
1 Before you can begin to organize your pantry, you need to spend some time de-cluttering what’s in it now. Get rid of staples that have gone beyond their ‘best-by’ dates and look at ways to make the space more user-friendly with additional shelves or space dividers and other clever storage solutions.
2 Make it a habit to do a weekly stock-take of your pantry – and also a daily once-over at a glance to keep things clean and ordered.
3 It’s also a good idea to have a system in place so you can replenish when necessary – a shopping list on the inside of the door, for example. This may sound like a pain, but it will save you time and money because you’ll be able to access things quicker and you won’t waste or buy duplicates.
TIP: Use chalkboard paint on the inside of your pantry door for grocery lists and menu plans.
4 Keep everyday staples like salt, pepper, tomato sauce, olive oil and the like front and centre, so you don’t have to reach too far to retrieve them. Save the lesser-required items for the top shelf.
5 Group similar items together in zones, so you don’t have to spend ages looking for the cake flour or tinfoil, for instance. Grouping ideas include tinned food; snacks and sweets; bottled oils and vinegars; spices; grains, cereals and pasta, etc.
6 Why rifle through a stack of boxes when you can transfer dry goods into clear containers for instant spotting. Use matching slim and tall and/or square containers to maximize on the space that all that bulky packaging would’ve taken up.
7 Store all those finicky packets together in one clear container or stand them upright, in single file, inside a caddy – from soups and two-minute noodles to instant gravies and the like.
8 Another way to group your items together is to make use of ‘themed’ storage baskets and pack all the essentials for ‘Baking’ (cake flour, castor sugar, etc); ‘Italian’ (pasta and sauces); ‘Asian’ (coconut milk, sesame oil, soya sauce); ‘Curries’; ‘Coffee & Tea’, etc, together in one basket that you can simply lift out of the pantry and carry to your kitchen counter. You can also use baskets on wheels to make use of floor space under the bottom shelf if you have it. Get clever with labels by buying inexpensive chalkboard blanks for your themed baskets and change them seasonally.
9 Set aside an easy-to-reach section in the pantry for the kids to grab after-school snacks like granola bars, dried fruit, biscuits, pretzels and such.
10 Light up the shelving in your pantry so you can easily see what’s in there, as sometimes things get left in the back, in the dark, and later forgotten about. Also, if you have high shelves, keep a small ladder close by for when you need it.
How do you keep your pantry organized? Share your tips and ideas with us…
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