How to Organize Your Kitchen Pantry

Successful kitchen pantry organization can take some organizational tricks as well as a little bit of creative use of space. Here are some techniques anyone can use to create an organized kitchen pantry.

The best way to organize your kitchen pantry is to group things into categories. Do you make a lot of pasta? Store your pasta, sauces and other ingredients together. Breakfast items such as cereal and granola bars can be stored on a lower shelf so children can reach them easily. If you do a lot of baking, you should have an area just for baking mixes and other ingredients. Do you only bake once or twice a year? Put your baking items out of the way on a lower or upper shelf, or in a different cabinet. This will give you more space to organize your kitchen pantry items.

Items such as canned goods should be organized in your kitchen pantry the same way a store organizes canned goods. Group like items together. All veggies together, fruits together, sauces together. Stepped canned good stands are also helpful in keep your kitchen pantry organized because you’ll be able to see everything you have. It will also keep you or other family members from having to dig in the back of the cabinet, possibly ruining your kitchen pantry organization.

You should also get rid of those items in your pantry that looked good in the grocery store, but you haven’t actually made. If you’ve had them more than a month or so, you’re probably not going to make them. Kitchen pantry organization is much easier once you get those unused items out. A great way to get rid of them is to have a pantry swap with your friends after they complete their own kitchen pantry organization projects. An item that you haven’t used may be something that a friend buys all the time. Anything that isn’t taken can be donated to your local food closet.

A great way to keep your family on board with your newly organized kitchen pantry is to label the shelves. You can just use masking tape and a marker, or you can use an electronic label printer. That way when your family members take things out they can put them back properly in your nicely organized kitchen pantry.

Now that you’ve got most of your items put away, and your kitchen pantry organization project is down to the odds and ends, it’s time to start thinking creatively. Take a look at the shelves. There is probably a bunch of unused space above shorter items, such as cans, on the side and back walls of your cabinets, as well as on the door on the inside of your pantry. There are all sorts of organizing racks, shelves and baskets that you can find at your local discount superstore. You can attach a basket to the side of your cabinet to hold things like seasoning packets, or attach a spice cabinet to the inside of your pantry door to keep your kitchen pantry organized.

Kitchen pantry organization can be so much more manageable when you use these handy tips to maximize your storage space. Mealtime will be much easier when you can enjoy your newly organized kitchen pantry.