Kitchen Organization, Day 3: The Refrigerator (and Freezer)

After the pantry, the refrigerator and freezer hold most of your food. Which means a lot of things in and out. Time to get it organized!

Welcome to Day 3 of the 6 day Kitchen Organization challenge! On day one, we tackled all the food in the pantry so today we work on the cold foods and the refrigerator and freezer.

Originally Published On: November 3, 2021

Today’s Task: The Refrigerator/Freezer

Just like when we organized the pantry, having an organized refrigerator and freezer make it easier to find the foods you need when cooking and making your grocery lists. Decide how you want to do this, I suggest one of two ways: either take everything out at once, or go shelf by shelf depending on how full they are and how quick you think you can get it done. You don’t want to leave the food sitting out too long.

Take all the food out from either the entire refrigerator or just the top shelf.
Wipe down the inside of the refrigerator, including the walls, shelves, drawers, etc.
Look through all the food for anything that is expired and toss it out. Make sure to make a list of what you are throwing away so you can replace it.
Group similar things, such as condiments, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, meats, etc. so you know about how much you have of everything.
Decide if you need new containers to organize your refrigerator with, or if what you have will work for the organization you are trying to achieve.
Put everything back in the refrigerator in a more organized way.
Continue with the next shelf if you are doing one at a time, and don’t forget to clean out the shelves in the door as well.
Move on to the freezer doing the same thing.

Inspiration & Resources

I put together a blog post with a list of some of my favorite organization products for the kitchen that you can find here: https://www.sonshinekitchen.com/organizing-products-kitchen

If you are looking for some ideas for pantry and kitchen organization, I created a Pinterest board that you can find here: https://www.pinterest.com/sonshinekitchen/kitchen-organization-decor/

My Refrigerator and Freezer

We have a counter-depth refrigerator, which means we lost some space, but we really don’t miss it. ENow and then, if we are planning a party, the refrigerator gets a little tight. Otherwise, I love it. We try not to have a lot of food that isn’t fresh, which means we don’t usually have a lot to keep in the refrigerator. I keep all the condiment bottles in the door of the refrigerator, the eggs and milk are also in the door and some of the bigger condiments like our maple syrup and tub butter. The bottom shelf in the door is juice boxes for the kids.

We splurged on the refrigerator with the “showcase” door and it is amazing! We use that all. The. Time! In the refrigerator, I keep the cheese all in one drawer, vegetables in another, and meats in the bottom. The shelves don’t have a lot of order, partly just depends on what fits where.

The freezer is also small, so we have to be strategic with that. The top shelf is frozen fruit and bread, next is frozen vegetables, then leftovers and breakfast, and our meats for dinners go in the drawers.