The Key to an Organized Fridge.
The key to an organized fridge is creating zones, or designated spaces for certain categories of food. Luckily, this is one of the quickest ways to keep your fridge tidy. Keeping like items together seems intuitive but creating your fridge zones can be tough if you are just starting.
After organizing just a few fridges, the main categories of a fridge defined by Supply by Kara are the following:
Cheese & Related
Produce
Raw Meat
Leftovers/Ready-to-Eat
Drinks
Condiments
This blog post will outline these six categories and best options in the fridge to store each.
1. Cheese & Related
What’s included:
Obvious: Cheese.
Not so obvious: hummus, cream cheese, tortillas, miso, yogurt, kids snacks, spreads, dips, or related items in plastic tubs. It’s often easier to see the lids of these items in a drawer rather than stacked on a shelf. Cooked meat, deli meat can be included as well since these types of meats should not be stored with raw meats, as to limit cross-contamination.
Places to consider storing Cheese & Related items:
The cheese drawer- most refrigerators have a large cheese drawer. This is an area of the fridge that is often underutilized and is allows for items to be tucked away but also easily seen when needed; or
A clear bin (or several) placed on the refrigerator shelf.
2. Produce
Produce is often the largest category in any fridge. Most refrigerators come with 2+ produce/crisper drawers but do not feel limited to just these spaces. Crisper drawers are infamous for becoming the graveyard for produce purchased with the best intentions. The best ways to combat produce death are to keep it visible, dry, and prepped (if possible). To keep it visible, remove any excess packaging, including and especially produce bags. To keep it dry, line the bottom of the produce drawer with flat paper towels or a cloth. This also helps with any debris. To prep, the limit does not exist - wash/chop/cut/dice/etc. But as a general rule, the less steps that stand between the produce in the fridge and being ready to cook or eat, the less likely it is to spoil.
What’s included?
Produce category should include all fruits, vegetables, and herbs. From here, I see two broad categories when considering fridge storage:
(1) Bulky: Carrots, celery, beets, parsnips, broccoli, bell peppers, cucumbers, apples, and other large, whole fruit or vegetables;
(2) Ready-to-Eat: I prefer to store non-bulky/fragile produce (berries, mushrooms, cut leafy greens, prepped broccoli, etc.)
Places to consider storing produce:
In the produce drawer - Best for bulky, uncut produce;
In bottles or mason jars on an accessible refrigerator shelf - This allows for greater accessibility. In our house, we have more produce than will fit in a drawer or two anyway.
*Disclaimer: It would be impossible to fit all of Supply by Kara’s recommendations for best ways to store every type of produce in a small section of a blog post. Here we are broadly discussing where to store the produce in the fridge, but of course not all produce ought to be stored here. Check out our other content for tips on specific produce.
3. Raw Meat
Meat is great to store in the freezer for longer term storage and in the refrigerator to defrost or to be consumed quickly.
What’s Included?
Obvious: Raw meat - steak, chicken, fish, bacon.
Not so obvious: Do not include deli meat or other meat items that are ready to eat in the raw meat zone. These are better suited in the Leftover & Ready-to-Eat zone.
Places to consider storing raw meat (when in the refrigerator):
In a “produce/crisper” drawer;
In a clear plastic or other waterproof bin placed on a refrigerator shelf.
* Keep raw meat contained to limit the fall-out if juices leak. You should also be storing meat lower in the fridge, rather than higher, and definitely below any ready-to-eat foods.
4. Leftovers & Ready-to-Eat
The most flexible section is often the shelf for Leftovers & Ready-to-Eat foods. Even in the most organized kitchens, this section fluctuates a lot.
What’s included?
Obvious: Lunch/Dinner leftovers, full meal-preps.
Not so obvious: Ready-to-eat produce (berries in a bowl, chopped lettuce in a jar), bread. I also recommend transferring food to a glass tupperware or other food storage container. It will often help the food last longer by protecting it from the air, cleaner, and more beautiful to look at. Keeping your leftover quesadilla in foil or chowmein in a chinese takeout container is not ideal. I also typically store eggs in this section for visibility.
Places to consider storing Leftovers & Ready-to-Eat:
Prime, easy to reach, middle refrigerator shelf.
5. Drinks
Another broad category. Organization of drinks is largely dependent on quantity and size/shape of the containers. You may find that storing cans together separate from other drinks (milk, juice) makes the most sense.
What’s included?
Everyday Drinks: Milk, milk alternatives (Oat/Soy/Almond), coffee creamer, cold brew coffee or tea, juice jugs, juice boxes etc.
Special Drinks: Sparkling water, cans of soda, beer, wine, etc.
Places to consider storing drinks:
A short, top shelf for cans and bottles (like wine) on their sides;
A refrigerator door shelf that can store bottles or cans;
Easy to reach tall, middle refrigerator shelf for large jugs or cartons of milk;
A second fridge can be used to hold soda, alcohol, or other drinks that are not needed daily.
*Storing milk in the refrigerator door is not recommended, because the temperature here is often warmer than the rest of the fridge.
6. Condiments
This is often the hardest category to get organized. Two tips for keeping condiments tidy: (1) Keep similar items together - can you group by hot sauce, asian sauces, general condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard), etc? Or (2) group by color. Or you can do both if you have enough condiments to work with.
What’s included?
Obvious: Hot Sauces (Tapatio, sriracha, enchilada sauce) , Asian Sauces (Soy sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, etc), General condiments (mustard, mayo, ketchup), salad dressing;
Not-so-obvious: Pickles, tube of tomato paste, opened jam, opened olives, yeast packets.
Where to store Condiments:
In the refrigerator door;
On a refrigerator shelf, in a bin or lazy susan.
Summary of tips for creating zones and keeping a tidy fridge:
Don’t be afraid to adjust your shelves to better suit your usual groceries. In virtually all fridges, adjusting shelves is less daunting than you may think.
Take all produce out of the plastic bags, even if you do nothing else to prep your produce.
Line your produce drawer with a cloth or paper towel for loose produce.
Store raw meat in a bin or drawer to limit leaks.
Remove as much extra packaging as you can.
Line up drinks with logos facing forward.
If your cheese drawer is large enough, store dips, tortillas, yogurts, or other miscellaneous items here. They are often easier to see than lost on a shelf.
Store leftovers in a glass or clear container. This includes leftovers cooked at home and leftovers from takeout.
Organize condiments by color or type (or both).
You can easily create additional refrigerator “drawers” by using clear bins to store anything and everything. This is often the strategy used by professional organizers to achieve the extremely aesthetically pleasing look because of the consistency. The Home Edit’s fridges are a perfect example.
It is less important that any one category of food is stored in a specific place in the fridge and more important that like items are stored together, wherever the best place may be. And just because a drawer says “Fruit & Vegetables” does not mean you can’t use it for raw meat instead.
These tips are meant to be a guide. Perfection not required! In my fridge picture above, you’ll see the asparagus between the drinks. It was too tall to fit on the lower shelf and that’s ok, no big deal.
Using the categories listed above as a starting point, are there additional categories to suit your food preferences? Looking at your own fridge, is there a designated zone for your food categories?
Tag me in your refrigerator pictures on Instagram (or send me a DM or text) and I’ll be happy to respond with some quick tips and recommendations!
