Organising your kitchen doesn’t have to be expensive or perfect. The key is to make it easier to find what you have and to be able to use those things. These simple kitchen organisation tips and ideas will help you tidy up your kitchen without spending much money!
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I love having a well-organised kitchen. Usually, I start by organising my fridge, which kicks off a real organising frenzy that motivates me to organise the rest of the kitchen. The most important advice I can give you about organising your kitchen is: LESS IS MORE! Seriously, get rid of everything you don’t use or won’t use, and then organise the rest. Holding onto things we really won’t use makes it harder to find the things we need. Believe me, I was once an extreme collector of kitchen utensils. I owned every conceivable kitchen helper you can imagine, including a cherry pitter, a strawberry huller, 15 spatulas, 3 citrus juicers, and so many cute little gadgets. The problem was, they took up space and after their initial use, I hardly used any of them again… they just clogged my drawers and made it hard to find the utensils I really needed. The same goes for food… if you have a lot of food in your pantry that you won’t use, let it go… make space for the things you will use, so you can actually see and easily access these things. Ok… enough of this little rant, let’s move on with the organisation!
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How to Organise Spices I’ll be honest, this is an area where I really needed help. I love to cook and use spices quite often, so I had many. The problem with spices is they last a long time, but they do expire. I also love sauces and Asian-inspired dishes, so I have many different sauces and oils. There were some things I had multiples of. If I’d been more organised, I wouldn’t have bought duplicates and wasted money.
After laying them all out and checking their expiration dates, I decided to move them from their old home in one of my cabinets to my Lazy Susan. I’m not a big fan of our Lazy Susan, but it was better suited for spices and sauces than for the dishes I stored there. I grouped similar items together and then used small lazy Susans to organise my spices and seasoning mixes. It makes finding what I need while cooking so easy!
How to Organise the Pantry When storing dry goods, I prefer to pack them in clear, labelled containers whenever possible. This way, I don’t have stacks of bags piled on top of each other. I want to be able to see how much I have of each item so I can plan to restock them when they run low. This works great for things like flour, nuts, chips, popcorn, and all dry items. It’s best to store these in airtight containers.
I like to put canned goods on a 3-tiered pantry shelf. They’re like little steps for cans. I put larger items in the back, if possible, and smaller items in the front. This makes it much easier to see what you have in your pantry. My pantry is tiny, so this system is a must for me! I also group similar things in the pantry together… pasta together, rice together, canned goods together, and snacks together.
How to Organise and Store Kitchen Utensils This is the area I really struggled with. One day, I decided enough was enough and decided to sort out all my crazy kitchen gadgets and keep only the things I used often. To store utensils in drawers, I bought some divided drawer organisers. It’s much easier to find and grab what you need while cooking when you don’t have to search for things.
My most used cooking utensils are stored in a container right next to my stove. I have many wooden spoons, some of which belonged to my grandmother, and I actually use them… they are my favourite utensils!
Storing Kitchen Knives Instead of storing my knives in a knife block on my worktop, I opted for a magnetic knife strip. It’s attached to the side of my fridge, which is closest to the stove, for easy access. If you have small children, you should store knives in places they absolutely cannot reach, so this probably isn’t a good option for you.
Organising Cookbooks I love cookbooks! Some of the cookbooks I own belonged to my grandmother, some were written by friends, and some by my favourite chefs. I like to keep them in my kitchen so I can use them when planning menus. I store mine in an open kitchen cabinet so I can see them. Here’s the thing with cookbooks… if you love them, you probably have many. My advice is to keep only the ones you REALLY love. I used to have tons and barely used them. Now, I keep only what fits in my cabinet, and I use all of them. It was hard to limit them at first, but I feel so much better now that I don’t have a multitude… it makes browsing much less stressful. And… you can donate or give away excess cookbooks.
Organising with Baskets Since we have a really small home, we have to use every available space to organise, and that’s where baskets really come into play. For example, we have several baskets on our kitchen island to store items that otherwise don’t have a place. One contains foil, cling film, and bags, one is for my kitchen towels and dishcloths, one contains bread, tortilla wraps, and crackers, and one is used to store my coffee pods and tea bags. Since we have a tiny pantry and only 3 drawers in our kitchen, these baskets are lifesavers for me!
The bottom line is, if you really want your kitchen to be clean and organised, you need to declutter and get rid of some things.
