This ultimate fridge organization unpacks my journey of decluttering our greasy mess of a fridge into a food haven of simplicity and cleanliness + tips for my takes on maximizing space and minimizing clutter.
One order of business for this year was organizing some places that have gotten out of hand and one of the first spots I decided to take on was the fridge. On top of getting messy, the fridge had become a space where food was pushed to the back and scattered in random places. The “before” pictures don’t quite do it justice since I had already started cleaning it out and then took a picture when I remembered!
We enjoy cooking at home, meaning we use our fridge for ingredients often and stick leftovers in there. I have found over the course of time that lots of foods would get stuffed in there (especially produce) and left unused. I found that paying $30 for organization bins would pan out to saving us a lot more money in the future for not wasting food that gets hidden so easily with no “system” in place. Having everything in a certain place also helps with making a grocery list, as I can open and see easily what we need vs don’t need.
DECLUTTER
The decluttering process quite frankly took the longest and was probably the most satisfying! I threw out anything expired and that we just plain don’t use. I wiped down the entire fridge with Myers All Purpose mixed with vinegar and essential oils. It was very important for me to use vinegar because there were some really tough spots that needed to go and vinegar does that job best! I used the essential oils, lavender and lemon, for two reasons – 1. To compensate the vinegar smell 2. Lemon works as a cleaning agent as well to help get tough spots out. After taking out all the products and wiping them down, I then began separating all the items into each category that I would be labeling and got them prepared to be put back into the fridge.
CONTAINERS
Let’s talk containers! There are so many different options out there for organization and it’s hard to pick the ones that will fit a certain space the right way. I like clear containers because I 100% prefer to be able to see what is low/high in stock when I open the fridge. This makes it easy to make a grocery list and not forget about certain foods to eat. We have a standard size fridge (as opposed to a french door fridge), so personally 1 set of these from Amazon was enough. This set also came with an egg holder, which I absolutely love!
I got big chalkboard mason jars for fruit and boiled eggs from Home Goods and it is my favorite part of this fridge! Practicality purposes aside, I thought it was a cute addition that gave it a bit of that “homemade” vibe, something about mason jars does that! Cuteness aside, I found that the jars actually help take up less space since they elevate up, and once again because they are clear and in the front of the fridge which helps to put them in front of your eyes to eat more often.
The cute butter container was also from Home Goods, it is great because it came with a little serving tray that we can utilize when guests come over and have the butter to serve. As far as it being in the fridge, I noticed that a lot of the butter would get jumbled up, the wrappers would be coming off, so it is nice to have something to just put over the butter so they are well contained even with their peeling wrappers and all.
LABELS
I made the labels with my vinyl cutter, Silhouette Portrait (which is basically like a Cricut), with black adhesive. I chose the font “Playlist Script” on Canva and then uploaded them into the silhouette software. Here is the list of the labels I made:
Side Door:
Sauces
Condiments
Flavoring
Sweets
Main Compartments:
Fruit
Leftovers
Snacks
Cheese
Produce
Meats
Categorizing the Items
Here is how I categorized the Items into each shelf:
First shelf – Drinks & Liquids (Sparkling Water, Orange Juice, Oatmilk, Chicken Broth)
Second Shelf – Fruit, Eggs, & Yogurt
Third Shelf – Dips (Hummus, Greek Yogurt dip, etc.) & Cheese
Fourth Shelf – Veggies (Lettuce, Avocados, Bell Peppers, etc)
Fifth Shelf – Meats
Side Door:
Sauces – Marinara, Salad Dressings, Soy Sauce
Condiments – Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo, Jelly (Basically anything that would be used for sandwiches, “spreads” would be another word to use)
Flavoring – Lemon, Lime, Sun Dried Tomato, Garlic (The blue thing you see is my face roller, to keep it nice and cold lol)
Sweets – Dark Chocolate, Syrup, Whipped Cream
5 TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND
1.Separate veggies from fruit
Keeping veggies and fruit together makes them ripen quicker and leads to early spoilage. HERE is an in depth article detailing exactly why this happens and the importance of separating fruit from veggies.
2. Remove a bin to keep it open
There was actually a large drawer bin at the bottom where the veggies are located and quite frankly too many things were getting stuffed in there and forgotten about. I find having smaller bins that are exposed and not in drawers encourages us to use items instead of forgetting about them.
3. Clear containers save you $
I stated this earlier but I find that one of the biggest benefits of having an organized fridge is to be able to easily see your inventory so you don’t double buy things. It allows you to see everything up front to make sure that you actually eat the food and not let it go to waste.
4. Add something fun
I used a couple of the containers for sparkling water and found that to be a “fun” little element to the fridge as well as the chalkboard jars. There are things like actual soda dispensers and a spinning turntable that would also be a cute and fun!
5. Utilize labels
Labels help everyone in the home to be on the same page of where to put things, since you can’t always expect everyone to remember without them. If you don’t have a vinyl machine, don’t sweat it. There are options on Etsy that provide fridge labels. Even if you don’t like big labels, some subtle small white ones will do the trick!
SHOP THE POST
It was such a fun project that did not take that long to do but was overall so beneficial for our family! Labels and containers aside, I think it’s so great to aim for a deep fridge clean once a year and do a good wipe down + throw out expired items. Next up is to tackle our Craft/Party Closet + Pantry and I can’t wait to share the process and finished results here with you on the blog.
Until next time,
Cherise