Learning to organize your pantry is essential to creating a kitchen that is easy to use. Having an easy to use kitchen makes cooking from scratch meals easy to make, helps save you money, and helps you feel more confident feeding your family.
Would you rather have perfection or confidence?
You need to answer this question for yourself.
I love color, matching bins, and fancy font labels as much as the next person. However, I have found that waiting to gather all those special materials slows me down.
When I try to make the space perfect there is no progress. No progress means no increase in my confidence.
My confidence is more important to me than perfection. I can always upgrade my labels and my bins later, but right now I have an organized pantry I use everyday to feed my family.
Thoughts to Have Before You Organize Your Pantry . . .
Who is going to have access to the pantry?
How does everyone with access organize?
My son loves to move and yank everything in his reach, so I had to come up with a pantry system that was baby safe and was easy for me to clean up every time he walked by and my canned goods caught his eye!
My husband likes to organize quickly, so broad categories work best for him. I don’t mind broad categories to organize my pantry, so I used this information to help me create a pantry that works for our family!
Step 1 – You have entered the NO BUY PANTRY CHALLENGE!!!
Challenge yourself to not buy anything for the pantry for 1-3 months. You cannot organize a stuffed space. If you want to organize you need to create the space for the organization to work with.
Step 2 – Throw it or Donate it
After not buying anything for a while you probably have made space in your pantry. This leaves you with any bulk items you have left and the ingredients that you do not normally reach for.
If you have unopened, unexpired foods to donate you can use foodpantries.org to help you find food pantries in your area that you can contact about donations.
Check the expiration dates on the food you haven’t looked at in a while and try to use up the oldest foods first. Most canned or dried foods do not go bad on the expiration dates, but they may start losing nutrients and should be used soon.
Ask your friends if anyone can use it. I know it may sound odd, but when I have asked my friends, they always take something or we end up planning a meal together that uses up the food.
Take a moment to notice what you are not going to use so that you don’t get those ingredients in the future.
Step 3 – Empty it out!
You have two options to empty it out. You can empty out one space at a time or empty everything at one time. Think about how much time you have and if you will be interrupted often. Create a corner where the everyday items go just in case you need to find those items mid-clean.
Step 4 – Move it Around
If you are unhappy with anything in your pantry now is the time to try something new. Maybe add a small box to lift something up. You may need cardboard on the shelf so the jars sit flat. Maybe you need to buy a lazy susan for that corner you can’t reach. Move shelves if you want to.
This is your pantry, make it work for you!
Step 4.5 – Measure the Shelf length, depth (width), and height
I really recommend using bins to organize the pantry. You need to know the size you need them to be. Once you have the measurements then you can shop around your house for bins that will fit, or you can buy bins that you feel like will work. I like bins that slide in and out easily so that I can grab and go.
The dollar stores near you have some great, cheap bins to use. I got many of my pantry bins there.
Step 5 – Grab the Bins, Labels, Tape, and a Marker
Grab the tools so that everything is in one place ready to use.
Step 6 – Deep Clean Your Pantry!
Your pantry is getting moves around a lot so clean it right! YOU deserve a clean pantry too. I use warm water with a splash of vinegar in it to wipe down the shelves. If the shelves are wood go over it with a dry rag to remove any moisture.
Step 7 – Try the Bins
Wash the bins and take off any stickers. Now is the time to try out how all the bins fit in your pantry together. You can move the shelves around now to accommodate anything. It would be sad to fill them up then realize that they don’t all fit together like you thought. Find a system that works together that moves easily.
Step 7.5 – No Bins, No Problem
You can label shelves too! I have half of each shelf for different types of food (see step 8) so that I know where to look.
Step 8 – Label the Spaces to Organize your Pantry
Take a minute to think about all the food you took out of the pantry. It should all fit into similar categories.
Label Ideas to Organize your Pantry:
Dried/Canned Meats, Dried Dairy, Baking Ingredients, Canned Veggies, Dried/Canned Fruit, Prepped Meals, Pasta, Cereals, Beans, Nuts, Oils, and Tomatoes
You have an idea of how much of each food you have on a normal basis. Assign space to the categories you have. You probably have spots where some foods go that work well, so focus on the foods that don’t have a good spot and try to solve that dilemma.
If you live with others, you can try to label the bins or the corners so that they know where things go. Remember that no one will care about this system as much as you do though, so have grace with the others. Even if you are the only one who cares, cleaning up after the others will be much easier because you have a plan.
Parent Pro Tips
Keep the food you want your kids to snack on at the bottom.
Keep the canned goods near the bottom. The little kids can rip that down without getting hurt or hurting the food.
Anything breakable, dangerous, or important should go near the top so that they cannot reach it.
Step 9 – Organize Your Pantry
You now have to put everything back into the pantry in the right space. Wipe each of the containers down as you handle them. You might be surprised how much dust comes off of them!
Step 9.5 – Random Extras? Doesn’t fit?
Do you have a few special foods that don’t fit in the system? It sounds like you know what you are making for dinner this week!
Step 10 – Test out Your New Pantry
Test out your organization for a month or two and see how it goes. What problems come up? What is working really well? Adjust as you need to, but you are more organized than you were before!
Your pantry is beautifully organized and you can rest easy knowing that you know where everything is and how much of everything you have. Cheers to you for creating a confident home for yourself! You deserve it!
How do You Organize Your Pantry?
Tell us in the comments below your tips and categories that you use in your pantry!
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