Organizing Your Kitchen Pantry

An organized kitchen pantry simplifies your work in the kitchen, allowing you to find the things that you need without a lot of effort. Organizing the pantry doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. If you have the right tools and an hour or so of time, then you can turn any pantry (or even a closet near the kitchen) into a useful storage area that will help you stay organized and make the most efficient use of your time. A properly organized pantry can free up cabinet space in the kitchen while giving you plenty of room to store plenty of food and other supplies.

Installing ShelvingTo set up your pantry initially, you will want to install shelving if your pantry doesn’t already have it. Shelving appropriately spaced (around a foot apart, going up vertically) is a good arrangement. You can also supplement the shelving with baskets, canned food holders, lazy “Susan” type storage helpers, and more.

Designating SectionsYour food items and your non-food items can be stored in the same pantry, but you need separate sections for each. Aim to designate sections for the following within your pantry:

• Canned food, including canned vegetables, fruits, meats, and sauces.

• Boxed food, like pasta, rice, and oatmeal.

• Staple food, like sugar, flour, cornmeal, and so on. (These last much longer if stored inside an airtight canister that is labeled with the contents).

• Bottled foods and condiments, like salad dressing, ketchup, mustard, and jelly.

• Beverages, like juices, water, soda, and beer.

• Breakfast items, like cereal, cereal bars, and toaster pastries.

• Snack items, like chips, cakes, cookies, and so on.

• Desert mixes like pudding mix, cake mix, or brownie mix.

• Kitchen helpers like paper towels, aluminum foil, and plastic wrap. Some people also choose to storage their garbage bags, sandwich bags, and storage bags in the pantry as well.

Use inexpensive labels to clearly identify each section in the pantry. For smaller items in the pantry, aim for placing them in a basket, or in an open transparent storage box that allows you to see what is inside clearly.

Organizational Helpers for the Pantry
You can easily outfit your pantry inexpensively by shopping for pantry storage items at “dollar” stores or even your local big box retailer. Small stacking shelves made of plastic can allow you to stack more cans of food, while hanging baskets that you suspend from the pantry ceiling can be used to hold everything from onions to potatoes. Various other types of organizers can not only add valuable space to your pantry but will also make it a cinch to find the things that you are looking for. Another added benefit of a well-organized pantry space in the kitchen is that you will be able to easily see what you are “out” of so that you can quickly make a shopping list to replenish your stock of goods.

One good way to judge whether or not you have done a good job of organizing your pantry space is to see if you can visually see most of the food in the pantry at once. If so, you are pretty much organized, and you will have a simpler, easier, and quicker time of planning meals, cooking , and making out grocery lists.