I have been living with my newly organized refrigerator for about a month now and am LOVING it. Because food is organized by groups and is labeled, my husband and kids have not messed it up LOL. Also a quick tip for you; label your leftovers with a piece of washi tape and write the date you cooked it. This comes in so handy when cleaning out the fridge. I write dates on everything I open as well. My Kitchen Home Project List is getting shorter and shorter and today I am showing you how I tackled freezer organization.
Hot Mess Before Picture
We have a real problem with just randomly stuffing things into our freezer. I really had no idea what was in there besides what I could see directly in the front. Whenever I would come home with groceries I would just put things wherever I could find room for it. The only place where I knew something always lived was ICE CREAM 🙂 That always stayed on the top shelf.
Clean Out EVERYTHING
The first thing I did was get some ice chests and put everything in my freezer into them. As I was pulling things out I took a mental note of the kinds of food I had and also threw out anything that wasn’t good anymore or freezer burnt. I then quickly took out all the shelving to wash and closed the freezer back up. After that, I wiped down the walls quickly and replaced the shelving back inside.
Find Storage Solutions for Freezer Organization
One of the main problems with my use of the freezer is once something got shoved to the back, it was never to be seen again haha. I thought that if I could create “drawers” on the shelf it would be easier to access items in the back. So I measured the width, height, and depth of the shelves and found these inexpensive Sterilite containers that fit perfectly.
I removed the lids and slide them right onto the shelves and can pull them out just like sliding drawers!
Separate Food into Groups
When I moved all of my food into the ice chest to clean out the freezer, I paid attention to what kinds of things I had. Obviously, I had ice cream 🙂 along with breakfast items, frozen vegetables, dinner items, seafood, and meat. Before placing the food into the containers, I labeled each one using my Silhouette Cameo.
I only have some very small space on the door itself so I used this to store freeze pops so the kids can easily reach them. I also store our ice packs, teething rings for Elise, and a random lean cuisine for work lunch.
Freezer Organization
In order for things to fit a little nicer into the containers and door shelf, I took things out of their boxes. I then placed my labeled containers on the shelves and filled them with everything from my ice chests. Everything fit great and there is room in some containers to add more. Also, you may notice there is a lot of space above my dinner box. I may stack two containers here if I need more room. Or I may try to order another shelf for my freezer.
Another great thing to have when freezing meat or seafood is a vacuum sealer. I got this one from Amazon and it works just a good as my fancy food saver that broke a couple years ago. I also buy the roll of freezer bags from Amazon and it lasts a long time. We normally buy our ground meat and chicken breast from Sam’s or Costco in a large amount and separate them into one pound portions before vacuum sealing and freezing. This system really saves us money and works great for our family.
I’m so excited that I actually know what is in my freezer now and can access everything easily. Also going through my freezer is really going to help me with meal planning and making sure that I use what I already have. I hope this post inspires you to tackle your freezer soon!
P.S.
I need to tell you a funny story on why it’s important to go through your freezer and clean it out every once in a while. My lovely grandmother is 88 years old and has TWO deep freezers along with a small freezer above her refrigerator. My dad is a fisherman and regularly brings her shrimp, soft shell crabs, and fish. He also hunts and brings her deer and duck meat. So as you can imagine she has accumulated quite a lot over the years. And because she grew up during the depression, she NEVER throws anything away. In 2005 when Katrina and Rita hit New Orleans, it flooded my grandmother’s house and she went without power for quite some time. When they finally got back home to clean out her house and freezers, they found things from 1985. Yes, 20-year-old food in her freezer. So moral of the story, use what you have and clean out your freezer yearly so that you do not end up having 20-year-old things living in the bottom of it LOL. Love you Maw Maw Evelyn!!
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