One of the most important parts of the kitchen is the fridge. However, it often gets neglected, left to become over-cluttered, messy and filled with soggy vegetables (gross).
There are plenty of benefits of keeping a fridge organised. Food doesn’t spoil and leftovers get eaten.
Here are five tips to get you started with your fridge organisation.
Clean quarterly
Remove everything from your fridge and give the shelves, drawers, and compartments a good clean, about four times a year. Disinfecting and sanitising every surface will help to remove dirt, stains and hardened spills. If the fridge shelves can be removed, let them soak in hot, soapy water for 15 minutes.
Throw away expired items
A simple but effective step that we can often forget. Audit your fridge, toss anything, and everything which has (or is on the brink of!) going off. An excellent way to keep track of this is to make it part as your shopping routine. When you write your shopping list, check all your food items and throw out the ones that are past their best.
The fridge hierarchy
It’s important to place items in the ‘correct’ place. Different sections of the fridge can have slight variations in temperature, meaning that some foods are better kept in specific locations. By grouping ‘like’ items together, not only will you easily find what you are looking for when you need them, but so will your family members. Plus, it will also help to reduce spoilage and food wastage.
Upper shelves: Foods that don’t need cooking such as leftovers or deli meats are best on the top shelve in your fridge.
Lower / middle shelves: Dairy products such as milk, cheeses, yogurt and butter are best kept here. Milk and eggs are often stored in the fridge doors; however, this can spoil these dairy items quicker.
Bottom shelf: This is the coldest part of the fridge, and where raw meat and fish should be stored. Placing raw foods here also reduces the risk of cross-contamination.
Drawers: This is where you should find your veggies, fruits and salads, even herbs too!
Door shelves: Foods such as condiments, jams and juices which contain natural preservatives should live here. That is because the door is the most susceptible to temperature fluctuations and can be the warmest area of the fridge.
Keeping this hierarchy in place will help you to keep your fridge organised at all times.
Pop your food items into containers
Although it’s tempting to put everything straight into the fridge, we recommend taking the time to put your food items into containers as soon as you get home from the grocery store or farmers market.
By placing items such as fruits and vegetables into airtight containers, like ClickClack’s Daily Range, your food will stay fresher for longer and will help to keep your fridge neat and organised.
Put leftovers in the first row
Last but not least, on our fridge organisation list are leftovers. To avoid wastage, have items that need to be eaten quickly in the front and centre of your fridge. Thus, you see them and remind yourself to use them. Leftovers are great to be stored in containers such as our Cook+ glass container, which allows you to store, freeze and reheat meals simply.
