I love organising hard-to-organise spaces. Like junk drawers, or the fridge! Fridges tend to be a messy spot in many people’s houses, while it’s actually a really important place to keep organised. A messy fridge is a disaster: forgotten leftovers, mushy vegetables in the back, lost dairy products… It’s not only nasty but can be potentially dangerous as well, contaminating your fresh food unnoticed.
Today I want to show you how I organise my fridge! Granted, I have a large fridge that I use all by myself, and I always empty it out before leaving for the weekend, so it’s not that hard to keep organised. But these tips should be aplicable to any fridge size and contents!
This is what my fridge looks like on a friday afternoon. I have a few leftovers in there and the food that’s going to stay there over the weekend.
Let me jump right into tip no. 1: designate a purpose for each shelf.
I organise the food that goes into the fridge by how quickly it needs to be eaten: the closer it is to expiration, the lower it goes in the fridge (except for my lunch basket- that’s always on the bottom shelf)
My top shelf holds my plastic food containers. This is convenient for me because I have a tiny kitchen with very little cabinet space, and a large fridge that I never fill up. It probably wouldn’t make sense for most people to store plastic containers like this but it works great for me.
The second shelf holds any items that will stay in the fridge long-term. Right now it holds just my walnuts and dried fruits, but if I buy sundried tomatoes in oil, or salad cheese cubes in oil or items like that, they go on this shelf. I keep my nuts and dried fruits in plastic containers. They stack nicely so it looks neat, and they’re see-through so I can easily see what I have and whether it’s going bad.
The next shelf down holds my fresh items that need to be eaten as soon as possible. This is where I keep my eggs, leftovers, and anything that’s been opened and needs to be finished. Again, I prefer to keep as many things as possible in see-through containers so I’m actively reminded of them and that they need to be eaten. This is also where I would keep yoghurt and anything I bake to eat throughout the week.
Right now it holds eggs, half a carrot, a piece of ginger, tomato paste, and hummus. My sundried tomatoes also moved to this shelf because they’ve been in the fridge for a while and need to be finished now.
The next shelf down is my sandwich basket. It’s customary in the Netherlands to eat sandwiches at least twice a day, and although I don’t do that (I love my breakfast options!), I do eat sandwiches for lunch regularly and I cater to Robbert’s bread-munching needs, of course. Having a basket where you corral all bread-related items is the best tip I can give you. It’s so easy to just grab a slice of bread and pull out this basket, to have all your options on the table in just seconds! I keep my bread in the freezer, by the way. Since I live alone I can’t finish a whole loaf before it goes stale so this is my best option.
On the very bottom of my fridge is my crisper. This is where I keep the fresh fruit and veggies that need to be refrigerated. This usually starts out full and is empty by friday (which is when I took this picture), hence the sad, lonely half celery. I plan my meals at the start of the week so that I’m sure I can use up all my fruit and veggies before the end of the week.
And then there’s the fridge door! I use the door to store my condiments and refrigerated drinks. There’s not much method to this madness, I just stick everything where it fits. Since I can only fit one row of products in the shelves there’s no risk of me forgetting something that’s hidden behind something else.
The top shelf holds this horse raddish sauce from IKEA and a bottle of lemon juice.
The next shelf holds ketchup, mustard, and liquid stevia.
The one below that holds some cocktail sauce (that, looking at it now, needs to be tossed. Haven’t picked that up in ages anyway), garlic sauce, sweet chili sauce, apple sauce, and yoghurt based mayonnaise.
The bottom shelf holds my syrup, milk, and the occasional bottle of wine. I know you shouldn’t store milk in the door of the fridge because it’s sensitive to temperature changes, but I always finish mine within 4/5 days and have never had any trouble with it. Plus, there isn’t any space in the body of the fridge tall enough to store my milk upright. This may be something to consider for your own fridge though: milk spoils faster when kept in the door so try to store it on a shelf inside the fridge if you can.
Lastly, I want to give you 5 fridge organisation tips for fuller fridges:
Keep like items in baskets: items won’t fall over or roll away and it greatly improves the organised look of your fridge.
Label! Whenever you put leftovers into your fridge, label them with the contents and date of production. You can also label your baskets so all family members know what goes where!
Baking soda is a great odour-absorber. Keep a little dish of baking soda inside your fridge to keep it smelling fresh and prevent smells transferring to other items in the fridge.
Line your fridge shelves with cling film. When it’s time to clean the fridge, simply remove the dirty cling film and replace with clean sheets. You can use plastic place mats for the same purpose.
I really hope this helps you organise your fridge!
Nice tips! Funny enough I just cleaned out and organized my own fridge yesterday. I organize the shelves in categories for use with sandwitch/bread stuff on the top.. but the expiration sorting sounds like a good idea too. For now (yeasterday) I just applyed that for the door, putting the things with a quicker expiration date in the front, and the stuff that seems to stay good forever in the back :)
What do you think about a "What I Eat" video?
Some german youtubers did them and since you help us out with so many great recipes, a week of little food vlogs would be gorgeous :)
"the sad, lonely half celery" hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha