From the Archives – I hope you enjoy this old post from last year about organising the fridge. I’ve been spending some quality time with the kids on these final day’s of the holiday’s. Will be back to normal posting soon 🙂
Do you feel that you don’t have enough room in your fridge? There’s a possibility you do have the room you just need to organise it more efficiently. Organising your fridge won’t take much time and you’ll find it easy to maintain, so lets take a look at a few ideas for you.
STEP 1 – CLEANING THE FRIDGE
STEP 2 – ORGANISING THE FRIDGE
- Designate area’s in your fridge and group all like items together, such as, beverages, condiments, dairy, meat, fruit etc.
- Create easy access to everyday items by placing on the top shelf.
- Your fridge will stay organised if you remember to always return items to their ‘home’.
- Make sure everything is covered otherwise they will take on odours from food around them.
- When purchasing meat from the supermarket, I grab a plastic bag from the fruit and veg section to wrap around the meat to prevent bleeding and dripping on other groceries and to keep the fridge hygienic.
- Potato’s and onions need to be stored in the pantry.
- When returning from grocery shopping I cut all vegetables and place in Tupperware’s Fridgesmart containers. I do this for two reasons, firstly it makes them last longer. With the vents at the front it allows the food to breath and the waved bases prevents food from being stored in moisture. I have found my food to last for at least 2 weeks, alot longer than stored in the crisper of my fridge in the plastic bags from the veg dept. Carrots will last up to 4 weeks. Secondly and more importantly, for convenience, we have busy afternoons and when it’s time to prepare dinner it’s easy to get out the containers and grab handfuls of precut vegetables rather than taking time out to chop them up. If you can’t afford Tupperware consider an alternative as I just can’t recommend more how this has helped our busy nights having all vege’s precut.
- I also store deli meats and cheese in Tupperware’s Clear Mates containers, again it keeps deli meat/cheeses to last longer in the fridge. My deli meat lasts up to 1 week.
- To maximise your space use square containers rather than round.
- As I don’t store any vegetables in the crisper that’s where I keep the kids yoghurt, poppers and other snacks.
- I keep my eggs in their cartons, so I use the egg compartment to store butter, open packets of chocolate buds and melts, aloe vera gel and cold packs for kids injuries.
- Make sure you don’t put hot food in the fridge, it needs to come down to room temperature before doing so.
- If you have left overs, place in a closed container. Keep at the front of the fridge so you don’t forget about it or place in the freezer.
Once your fridge is organised you’ll soon see that you have more space. A well organised fridge at least 3/4 full will consume less electricity which is a bonus!
Below I have taken some photo’s of my fridge after I have done my grocery shop and chopped up all the vege’s.
49 comments
Oh my you are organised! It looks great. Now a post on how to talk hubby into buying a bigger fridge would be perfect 😉
lol, a bigger fridge…hmm, a pro could be that you can fit in more grocery, less time at the shops spending money!
My question is – how do you drink so much milk!?!? Wow!!!!!!!!
This is normal for us, the kids have alot of milk on their cereal/porridge and have a milkshake after school at least once a week. We usually go through 8L a week.
We have two littles and one big (7) and we go through between 12 – 15 litres of milk per week (that’s me limiting milos and milkshakes). The adults have two lattes each morning so I have a feeling we are as much to blame!
You keep fruit in the fridge? I’ve never thought of that, does it make a big difference? Which fruit is a no-no? Thanks
Yes always have. We keep bannanas, pears and stone fruit in the fruit bowl out of the fridge. Potatoes and onions are kept in tupperware containers in the pantry. I find the fruit lasts well in the fridge.
The only fruit that i have found does NOT store well in the fridge is tropical fruit such as banana, mango and pawpaw/papaya – the skin goes black and the kids say they don’t like the taste change…
Of course when they are overripe i usually peel and freeze them as they give the most flavour to baked goods (Banana cakes are best with the bananas nearly black IMHO)
I find in Summer we have to keep fruit in the fridge to keep it more than a couple days but in Winter i don’t bother unless it’s cut.
Also, turn your fridge to a lower setting it’s colder than 4’c here most nights..Brrr!
I love cold Mango’s, but I must admit we eat them pretty quickly when I do get them. I freeze the banana’s too perfect for muffins and cakes!
Do the veges not dry out when cut? especially the carrots?? I sometimes cut tomorrow nights veges and put them in the microwave steamer with water in the fridge so it’s ready to go but if this works in the tupperware, I’m sold.
I find it works, it may dry out a little, but we usually have eaten it all up before it get’s too bad.
I’m a Tupperware Demonstrator and never thought to cut all my vegies up! Looks like you can fit alot more in by doing this… definately doing this from now on 🙂 Also sending my customers to your page!
thanks Rebecca, they will certainly get lots of tupperware tips here!
Hi. Great post. Just wondering, what model is your fridge?
I used to use my Tupperware for storing my uncut veges (the crisper containers prior to the Fridgemates ones). Unfortunately, when I bought my fridge/freezer pigeon pair, the crisper was too deep to fit in the fridge front to back and I had to store it sideways which took up too much space. I’ll have to try the Fridgemates to see if they will fit better.
We have a westinghouse, sorry I can’t find the model number. Tupperware sell a range of different sizes so you should definatley be able to find one that suits you.
glad i came across this post. im a student and the chopped vegetables make so much sense! im shifting apartments and im going to start over this way! thank you!
will definately save you alot of time.
i have an odd question, where did you get your fridge? a fridge without freezer space is a great idea for a large family!
WOW! Thank your SO much for posting this!
My husband is quite fussy when it comes to fetching his own snacks, as he hates to cut everything and make something healthy, but cutting the vegies, putting deli meats in clear containers etc. is the PERFECT solution to having him snack on healthy things when I’m not home 😉
Katrina I love how you keep your fridge. I love and sell Tupperware, you are a poster girl of how it should be. Any tips on how to convince our household to put things back where I’d like then to belong? lol. I’m going in search of your pantry now to see if it’s all Tupperware’d up 🙂
I love this idea about the containers for Vegies! it holds so much appeal to me. Thanks sweet. x
I love this idea about the containers for Vegies! it holds so much appeal to me. Thanks sweet. x
I love this idea about the containers for Vegies! it holds so much appeal to me. Thanks sweet. x
It’s, just beautiful haha
Makes it so much easier when it’s tidier and we don’t waste as much food J
Just interested – it’s just me and my husband in our household and I was wondering how long (generally) would it take you to use up all those veggies? I’m wondering how often you buy and chop up veggies. Trying to put it into a 2 person household situation. It looks awesome I have to say. Even though I’m sure it would go dry (even putting a peel carrot into my Tupperware containers go dry) I think it would still be great to have it all done for the week. I just LOVE the idea. It would make me cook veggies more often I think. I’m definitely gonna try this. Thanks for the idea.
We usually eat all these veggies within the week, that’s not having veges in every meal of the week, e.g. some nights maybe pasta bake, or scrambled eggs. I buy them at the beginning of the week and don’t stock up until the following week. It saves so much time and your right Robyn, it will make you eat and cook veges more often.
This is a great idea, what do you do with tomatoes and avocados ? Do you cut them as well?
Yes I keep the tomatoes in the tupperware clear mates containers, sliced. As for an avocado we use half usually, I place it into a sealed container and use the following day, left any longer and it will brown.
They say squeezing lemon hey juice on avocado stops them going brown. Never tried it as they never last that long in our house, but it could be worth a try.
Excuse the reply above not making sense, silly iPad has a mind of its own.
Yes Tammy i have also heard of squeezing lemon juice over them too. I like to keep my avocado’s in an air tight container, this also stops them from going brown.
Hi Katrina! This is such a great idea! Can you tell me a list of Veggies that can be cut up in advance and wont got yuck? Thanks Heaps!! 🙂
Awesome article. I have thought about doing this for ages but figured veggies would go dry. Def going to give it a go now! Thank you!
Thank Kat for another inspiring article! One question though: does your hubby have his own fridge or what? Where’s the beer and wine??!! 😉
if the tupperwear for the vegies is a bit too pricy on your budget, can you recommend an alternative?
Love Tupperware fridge containers. I went one further and removed my crisper and just fill it with Tupperware fridge containers now. I have never been one for Tupperware before but we have had these for 3 years and I would never go back to the crisper. In fact in a recent clean up I threw the crisper out because we will never use it again, and I’m pretty sure we will have this fridge until it dies. I also use a couple of the smaller ones for cheese and another for deli meat. I find they work well too.
What a fabulous idea… I’m going to copy your ideas.. Thank you.
your very welcome, hope they help 🙂
Hi Katrina
Do you keep your veggies in water or just in the containers?
Cheers
Hi Kirsten, just in the containers, I find in these style of containers they don’t go dry.
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Where can you these container’s
From in the uk
Hi Bindi, these ones above are from Tupperware, do you have them over there?
Hi we don’t
No we have nothing here like that
Ooh that’s a real shame, Bindi. Maybe you will come across something similar over in the UK, Good luck.:)
Another great tip is to freeze fruit left overs rather than throw away as these when frozen makes for fab smoothies – in fact I recenthly made the most amazing icecream from frozen grapes and raspberries with a bit of milk and a small spoon of chiseeds that were soaked in a little bit of milk. Voila! seriously delish!