To maintain a functional kitchen, the organization is the order of the day. Whether you’re blessed with a roomy walk-in pantry or constrained by a couple of cramped cabinets, you need to make the most of your storage space. A pantry that really works lets you easily see and access canned goods, packaged staples, spice jars, and snacks. All too often, though, a pantry becomes merely a jumble of food, storage containers, and condiment jars. Don’t despair! With just a few storage solutions, either DIY’d or store-bought, you can transform a pantry of any size into an amazing clutter-free zone.
By BobVila.com
Mason Jar Magic
Okay, so maybe this isn’t exactly a must-have for an organized pantry, but it certainly makes for a more attractive view. The next time you junk an empty cardboard salt container, salvage the metal spout to DIY a pour top for a mason jar. Use your new pour-spout jar to store a variety of dry ingredients. As a bonus, the container’s clear glass means you’ll know exactly when you’re running low on staples.
Grab and Go
Over-the-door organizers are small-space heroes! You can double your storage space with this sleek, multitiered rack. If, however, you’re low on cash, try repurposing a shoe organizer instead! The compartments will work just as well to stockpile snacks, spices, cans, and other pantry essentials.
Stack Your Snacks
In the typical pantry, every inch counts. For that reason, your chaotic collection of mismatched food storage containers may not be doing you any favors. Praised by organization experts and design bloggers alike, OXO Good Grips POP containers stand out for a number of reasons, stack-ability chief among them. Every set includes a mix of different sizes and shapes that all stack neatly together so you don’t waste any precious space.
Prep Your Pantry
Labels aren’t a must-have for your pantry, but they do help keep essentials organized and easy to find. Instead of rummaging through the shelves searching for that one ingredient, you’ll be able to spot what you need right away—and spend more time enjoying dinner with your family.
Baskets of Plenty
Clutter in the pantry makes meal planning a pain: With a mess of bags, boxes, and cans, it’s sometimes hard to see what you have on hand. And while cans are easy enough to stack, what should you do with bags and boxes of dried fruit, spice packets, or chocolate chips? Baskets offer a simple and affordable solution, and if you adhere a label to the front of each one, you’ll always know where you’ve stashed your snacks and supplies.
Smart Spice Rack
Spice jars come in all shapes and sizes, and they often get lost floating in a sea of miscellaneous pantry items. Keep those little bottles streamlined and readily available with a stackable spice rack. The sliding drawers are a home cook’s dream, because they make it easy to grab spices and store them quickly and neatly. Plus, the practical box shape means that it will stack conveniently with other pantry items.
Souped-Up Storage
Canned food: What’s not to love? It’s easy to prepare, great as a side dish in a pinch, and stays fresh longer than most grocery store staples. But without proper storage, cans can clutter your pantry or countertop. Bring order to this chaos with a rack that holds 36 cans at a time and features a tiered design that makes it simple to see what you have and what you need to pick up at the store.
Think Inside the Box
So, you squirrel away plastic grocery bags after shopping trips, do you? Well, why wouldn’t you, when you always need a spare bag to tote items around? Don’t let your pantry or cabinets get overrun by these plastic nuisances. Instead, simply stuff them into an emptied-out tissue box. The plastic seal in the box’s top will make it easy to dispense one bag at a time, while the cardboard structure keeps the rest of the bunch compressed and contained until you need them.
Shake Things Up
When your spice collection becomes too large to confine to a crowded drawer, it’s time to look elsewhere for space. Keep all your spices in sight without sacrificing valuable shelf real estate by creating an on-the-door storage unit. The savvy DIYer from The House of Wood created her sneaky spice storage by constructing a box frame, adding shelves, and then affixing dowels on each level to keep jars from falling when the door opens and shuts. Attach yours to the unused back of a pantry door, or follow this blogger’s lead and hang the shallow cabinet on a wall, behind its own door, to serve as the genius kitchen equivalent of a medicine cabinet.
Go for a Spin
In your ongoing quest for an organized pantry, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel—you already have a time-honored prototype. Though you may consider it a relic of a previous generation, the lazy Susan has persisted into the 21st century for a very simple reason: It works! Indeed, what it lacks in glamour it makes up for in no-frills utility. Got a shelf or cabinet so deep that it’s a hassle to access items way in the back?
Roll Call
Good news—you can keep food storage supplies tidily at your fingertips with a simple, supremely clever wire rack. The tiered design saves precious shelf or drawer space and is big enough to store six rolls of plastic wrap, aluminum foil, sandwich bags, or parchment paper.
