If you don’t have a proper storage plan for food storage containers, you can end up with missing lids and mismatched containers toppling from your cabinets. We rounded up our favorite kitchen storage hacks to solve your food storage container woes. Check out the easy and inexpensive solutions below.
Rescue a Cabinet Corner Shelf
Unfortunately for food storage containers, it’s inconvenient to store each bowl or dish with its matching lid. This can lead to a drawer full of mixed-up lids near impossible to keep straight. To help, sort your lids by size or container type, and arrange them on a three-tier shelf as you see fit. Print labels to make sure nobody in the house gets mixed up. Label by size, type, color—whatever works best for your household.
Manage Water Bottles
Find a place for a magazine holder in your cabinet and flip it on its side. From there, it’s easy to stack water bottles on top of each other and to keep them from toppling or taking up unnecessary space. Keep your water bottles within reach and in plain sight, plus have fun decorating your magazine holder or purchase one with a pattern you love. Any time you can stack your food storage containers is a good opportunity to save some shelf space.
Undershelf Space-Saver
Large food storage containers take up a lot of room, so gain additional storage space by sliding an undershelf basket into place in your cabinet. Fill it with sorted food storage container lids, then place the containers underneath their corresponding lids. It’s a quick, easy, and affordable way to make the most of a limited amount of space.
Sliding Storage Trays
Tired of blindly fumbling around in a dark cabinet for food storage containers and lids? Create your own makeshift pullout cabinets by placing lightweight acrylic trays on each of your cabinet shelves. To make sliding your trays out a little easier, cover the bottom of your cabinet shelf with an adhesive liner. Organize your food storage containers as you see fit, and say goodbye to the dread of digging through your cabinets when the container you need goes missing.
Book Bins
Keep cabinets from getting chaotic and avoid mismatched items with this easy kitchen drawer organizer hack. In a lower drawer or pullout shelf, flipbook bins on their sides and use them to turn your single storage area into several separate sections. Stack corresponding food storage containers and lids, and store them together in their own ready-made compartments.
Mounted Lid Collector
A wall-mount file holder can be convenient outside of the office when you use it for small kitchen organization. Hang one inside a cabinet door and fill it with miscellaneous food storage container lids that are normally hard to find. This will guarantee a lid is always within reach and that your small lids never disappear into the depths of an unorganized cabinet.
Tension Rod Compartments
Use two tension rods to create compartments in a small drawer for easy kitchen cupboard organizers. Place the tension rods near the top of the drawer, two or three inches apart, to create three compartments: one large, one medium, and one small. Keep your food storage containers in the large compartment, water bottles lined up in the medium compartment, and lids in the small compartment in an upright position to maximize storage.
Box Shelf Storage
To make instant drawer compartments and create a space for your lids without toppling, invest in a few decorative box shelves. Get a few that vary in size, drop them directly into a drawer, and keep containers and lids easily grouped in size-appropriate compartments. This method will keep your food containers sorted and will prevent stacks of lids from sliding around the drawer.
Incorporate Clear Containers
Declutter your cabinets with a few clear containers—or frosted, if you want to keep things out of sight. Sort by size and type, and keep lids near their corresponding food storage containers. Magazine holders come in handy again here, this time lying flat and storing lids while acting as a shelf for their matching food storage containers. Kitchen organization hacks like this are easily customizable and inexpensive.
Desktop Mail Sorter Magic
Place a desktop mail sorter in a pullout drawer to maximize space with its small, slender compartments. Use the sorter for food storage container lids, and stack the containers by size toward the front of the cabinet. When you’re planning how to organize your kitchen, don’t be afraid to take cues from other rooms in your home.
