14 Genius Ways To Organize Your Fridge

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How chaotic is your fridge right now? Don't worry, we're not judging — ours is pretty bad too. Refrigerators have an unfortunate knack for becoming very unruly, very quickly. If you're not careful, within days they can go from perfectly organized to totally messy, with various members of your family pulling them open, rummaging around, and putting everything back in the wrong place. Add in the fact that fridges can also get dirty fast, and it can be a real challenge to keep on top of things.

However, what if we told you that there's another way to live? One of the biggest mistakes people make with their refrigerators is not employing some key organizational tips and tricks that keeps them a serene space. By applying systems specifically designed to keep things organized, or putting in some ingenious tools that help you keep on top of potential food waste, your fridge can be orderly in no time. You can also use your fridge to organize other, more unexpected parts of your kitchen, or free up space by getting rid of some somewhat unexpected things. It may not be glamorous, but it's gotta be done: Let's organize that fridge once and for all.

If you're trying to prevent excess food waste, it's time to bust out a fridge organization hack. This one's called the FIFO system, and it'll change your life for food. FIFO stands for "first in, first out," and it's frequently employed in professional kitchens as a way to keep on top of stock rotation and to ensure that things don't go to waste. The idea is simple: If your items are new and have a longer shelf life, they can go towards the back of the fridge, and if your food is more perishable or older it goes towards the front. As new food items go into your refrigerator, the older ones rotate to the edge of your shelves, as a visual reminder that they need to be eaten.

Doing this allows you to immediately see what's going to go bad soon, and allows you to begin thinking about how to use it. It also stops perishable items from being nudged to the back of the fridge and going bad, leaving you with a horrific clean-up operation. The FIFO system isn't foolproof, and requires you to regularly take stock of what's in your fridge to prevent food slipping under the radar. However, once you've mastered it, your fridge will be clean and orderly.

When organizing your refrigerator, you need to use the right containers. More specifically, you need to use clear ones, like these from Rubbermaid. Opting for clear containers over opaque or colored ones allows you to see your food easily. Every time you open your refrigerator, you can assess the quality of your food without having to open the containers up and expose them to new air, which may lower their temperature and contribute to them perishing more quickly.

Clear containers also have the distinct advantage of allowing you to know what's in your fridge at any given time. Think about it: How many times have you placed an old piece of food inside an opaque container and then forgotten it's in there, only to open it up a week or two later and find that it's completely spoiled? By using clear containers, you get a visual reminder of what delicious leftovers are in your fridge, allowing you to work out how to use them. We'd always opt for clear glass containers over plastic ones, as they don't hold onto food smells and generally stay usable for longer.

We never knew that a Lazy Susan could change our lives — but then we put one in our fridge. Lazy Susans are usually reserved for serving food in Chinese restaurants, but in fridges they're total gamechangers, allowing you to easily access all of your food by simply spinning them around. Instead of having to take everything out to access your jars or sauces at the very back, you can place them all on a Lazy Susan and rotate them to reach them easily.

The beauty of Lazy Susans is that they come in a huge amount of sizes, like this 4-pack that features 12- and 10-inch turntables, allowing you to employ them in loads of different ways. Place larger ones on your lower shelves, and populate them with different types of cheeses, fruits, vegetables, or meats. Then, get smaller ones for your upper shelves, and organize them by food type: Pickled vegetables in jars on one, pasta sauces on another, and condiments on the third. Make sure to wipe and clean them periodically, as they can get a little grubby. You can even get Lazy Susans for other parts of your kitchen — try placing some in your pantry for your dried goods.

Most of our fridges are positively bulging with items that we really need to throw out, but some of us have the opposite problem: Our fridges just feel a little bare. By contrast, our pantries can be way too full of food, which can then sit at the back for years, collecting dust and gradually going bad. The easy way to fix this problem without throwing out your food is to transfer some of it to your empty fridge. You'd be amazed how many foods are actually better off in your refrigerator, and transferring some of them over can give your pantry some much-needed breathing room.

Condiments are a key food that may actually benefit from being in your fridge. Although they'll keep well in your pantry, popping them in your fridge can help preserve their flavor for longer. Preserved foods like olives or pickles are also way better off in your refrigerator. Plus, nuts and seeds can fare way better in your refrigerator, as it slows down their fat oxidation, which can lead to spoilage (which you of course want to reduce) — especially if you live in a warmer environment. Just ensure that you keep them in an airtight bag or container, as exposure to the cold air can cause them to deteriorate faster.

When organizing your fridge, you're probably thinking horizontally: How much stuff can you shove in before each shelf's load starts to stop your door from closing? As it turns out, you should be thinking vertically too. A lot of the time, we tend to use less of the vertical space in our fridges than we think. Each shelf can have a lot of dead air above the food, which you don't want to place more stuff on for fear that you'll smush it up.

That's why getting some stackable containers like this 14-piece set from Amazon is an awesome idea. "Being able to take advantage of all of the space in the fridge by being able to use clear stackable containers allows you to take advantage of the available vertical space too," says The Home Edit's Joanna Teplin over at Ideal Home. Begin by measuring the vertical space you have on each fridge shelf, before purchasing containers that will stack and fit into each one. Don't forget, too, that you can shift around your shelves to increase the vertical space in certain sections. This can be especially useful if you're currently storing bottles horizontally, when placing them in your fridge vertically can allow you to get a lot more stuff in there.

It's probably not gonna shock you that there's a lot of food waste out there, but what might shock you is exactly how much produce gets thrown away. In the United States, over a third of all food ends up as waste, which roughly equates to about 1,000 pounds of food per person annually, according to PIRG. This doesn't mean that you personally are throwing away a half-ton of food from your fridge every year, but it might make you consider exactly how much of your food you aren't eating and tossing away, potentially because it's gone bad before you've had a chance to eat it.

One of the easiest ways to avoid doing this is by making an "eat me first" shelf. Designate one of your shelves entirely to the food that you should be prioritizing for consumption, and every day or so, check your other shelves for food that might be going bad soon. If it is, place it on the shelf. This will act as a visual reminder that it needs to be eaten, allowing you to then figure out how to use it.

Condiment shelves can get messy fast, and not just because of food splatters. When you're dealing with a load of differently-shaped bottles all crammed onto the same shelf, it can start to look a little unruly and make organization challenging. This can lead to bottles having to be stored elsewhere, which means that you can then forget which condiments you actually have at your disposal. If that wasn't bad enough, all of the condiments in those bottles can collect at the bottom of them, making them tricky to get onto your food.

The solution to all of these issues lies in the humble egg carton. Take a leftover egg carton, cut off the bottom side, and place it in the condiment shelf in your fridge. Then, stack your bottles lid-side down in the egg carton. Doing this will keep your condiment bottles organized and secure, preventing them from clattering around and helping them fit more easily. Stacking them upside down will also keep their sauce towards the lid, making squeezing them onto food a breeze. As an added bonus, the porous egg carton will soak up any spillages — and you can easily replace it if it gets damaged.

The problem with having leftovers in your fridge is that they can take up a lot of space. This is especially true if you're keeping them in bowls instead of Tupperware or glass containers. When they're in bowls, it makes it tricky to store anything on top, even if you're covering them with plastic wrap or foil: If whatever you're placing on them is too heavy, it'll just crush the food inside the bowl, ruining it.

Chopsticks can prevent this from happening. Once your bowl is covered in foil or plastic wrap, place a pair of chopsticks on top, parallel to each other. Then, stack your second bowl of leftovers on top of them. The chopsticks will act as a buffer between the two bowls, preventing the one on top from weighing down the food below. You can repeat this trick for as many times as your fridge's vertical space will allow. Just ensure that you're using a sturdy pair of chopsticks, and that the bowl you're putting on top isn't too heavy. Otherwise, the chopsticks can snap or be displaced by the bowl itself, and all of your organizational work is ruined.

Fridges can quickly become a bulging, stuffed affair, with no space to put any new items. However, you don't have to just stick to your shelves to store your food in your refrigerator. One of the niftiest storage tricks out there is to create magnetic fridge containers. Made by combining plastic containers and small magnets, these are a great way to store smaller items like chopped herbs, leftover beans or pulses, and diced vegetables. You just take the container and stick it to the wall or ceiling of the fridge itself, freeing up space on your shelves.

Making magnetic fridge containers is easier than you probably think. Just grab a small button magnet and glue it to the bottom of one of your containers, giving it some time to fully dry before placing it on the side of your fridge wall. We'd recommend using fridge containers with snap-top lids that are fully leakproof, as your container will be sitting horizontally on your fridge's walls. If the lids are loose, this can lead to unwanted food drips.

While there are a lot of fridge hacks out there, none of them beat having a robust organizational system in the first place. It's vital to ensure that your food is placed in the right place in your refrigerator, both to make your life easier and to help lower the risk of food spoilage (as long as your refrigerator is set to the right temperature). Having your food in all the right places allows you to know exactly where each type of item is easily, meaning that you don't have to rummage around to find the grub you need.

It's best to work with basic food groups here. "The best way to stack your fridge is by grouping similar items together like your dairy products, meats and vegetables," says refrigerator expert Sarah Heaps via Ideal Home. "Designate each shelf to whichever food group and stick to your system when it comes to loading each big shop." Meat should be kept towards the bottom of your fridge, to limit the risk of juice drips contaminating other food. As your top shelves will be slightly warmer, it's best to keep them for items that either have a slightly longer natural shelf life (like condiments) or foods that you know you'll be eating imminently, like leftovers.

Your crisper drawer can be a stressful place. If you're not careful, you can end up with it becoming a mass of half-eaten vegetables, which are impossible to root through without crushing them up. The more disorganized this drawer becomes, the easier it is for your veggies to be forgotten about — and then a couple weeks later, you find that the cucumber or pepper you once had your eye on has turned into a rotten, mushy heap, leaving you with a clean-up operation to attend to.

One of the easiest ways to avoid this happening is by using dividers. Throwing some clear Shallow Drawer Dividers, like these expandable ones from Vtopmart, into the main drawer will help you organize your items more effectively, allowing you to sort them by type, sturdiness, or freshness. You can place hardier vegetables at the back, and more delicate ones like lettuce or spinach leaves at the front. This will both stop them clattering into each other, helping to preserve your veggies, and will also make everything easier to find. Plus, drawer dividers are easy to take out and clean when you need to.

The vast majority of domestic fridges are fitted with clear, plastic shelves. These shelves may fit in with the aesthetic of your fridge and prove easy to clean, but they also have a key problem: They're large sheets of non-porous material. As a result, plastic shelves can collect condensation very easily, and can also prevent proper airflow through your refrigerator, leading to you using more energy than required.

To avoid this, get smart and refit your refrigerator with wire racks. Wire shelving is commonplace in commercial fridges, thanks to its combo of sturdiness for larger quantities of food and its ability to allow airflow. Crucially, though, if opting for wire racks in your refrigerator, it's vital to consider the material you're using. Certain metals will not be rustproof, and fridges are pretty moist places — so you'll want to go for a material like carbon steel. Stainless steel is a good alternative, although it's not entirely rustproof (although it will keep rust away relatively well). Additionally, keep in mind that using wire racks can raise the risk of food drips contaminating other items, so ensure that you're using separate containers to store your ingredients instead of placing them straight on the rack itself.

Fridges house a vast variety of different foods, and it can be easy to lose track of what you've got in there. Think about it: How many times have you gone out to buy a jar of pesto or chutney, only to find that you already have one in your refrigerator, sitting right at the back and forgotten about? That's why we advocate working with a food bin system, and placing similar items in separate tubs. By doing this, you can easily pull out the bin you need before going to the store to check if you already have what you require, and not have to rummage around endlessly.

Using different bins for food groups can also help keep your fridge sparkling. If you're not placing the foods onto the shelves directly, then they should be way easier to wipe clean and maintain. We'd always recommend labelling your food bins clearly, so you don't have to pull them all out to find your items. This 10-pack of fridge organizers from Pomeat are not only stackable, they're also clear so you can see what you have.

Packaging can take up a huge amount of space in your fridge. Way too many items come in massive boxes or tubs, when the food itself is relatively small. This may help to make it look good in the store and stop it from being bashed about, but when you get it home it can occupy needless real estate. Cardboard packaging can also go soggy over time in your fridge, which may contribute to your food deteriorating more rapidly or getting other items wet.

Rather than have this happen, we'd advise you to get rid of original packaging wherever possible, especially for food that's already open. While this may not always be possible, decanting items from bulkier packages to individual food bags can be a great way to free up room. If you're doing this, it's important to label your bags with any necessary information. Make sure you write on any important cooking instructions or use-by dates, so that you don't forget how or when to make and eat it.