Organization of your freezer gets essential when you are tired, in a hurry and you cant seem to find the delicious meal from yesterdays supper that you couldnt help yourself from thinking about the whole day during work. Below are some tips to solve this recurring predicament:
Table of Contents
Know What Is Freezable
This should be the first thing you do before anything. For example, it is not advisable to store fruits or vegetables with high moisture content, such as lettuce and watermelon.
Freeze In Usable Portions
Take time to portion out the amount of item you will use to make it easier when you only need a portion of the whole piece. You can then freeze the portions in separate freezer bags so that when you need it, you can thaw out only the portion you need
Store Meat On The Lowest Shelf
Packaged meat or just any sort of stored meat is guaranteed to leak meat juices. Therefore, to avoid the meat juice from dripping on other items on the fridge or causing any mess, store it on the bottom shelf. However, the best results store it in a container that would contain the juices should it leak.
Label Everything
As humans, we are prone to being forgetful, and I have a solution to that. It is advisable to label the storage containers with the name of the food and the date which is more than important considering some foodstuff may go bad very fast.
Keep a Freezer Inventory.
To avoid overstocking, it is advisable to keep an inventory of everything you already have to avoid buying anything you dont need.
Put An Empty Egg Carton Bottom On Your Fridge Door.
An egg carton box is the best holder for upside-down condiment bottles.
This will help ensure that they dont fall out whenever you open the freezer door and it goes even further to ensure that the contents of the bottles are fully utilized, and wastage minimized since it keeps them at the top brim of the bottles at all times.
Use A Fridge Triage Box.
Put a box near the fridge for foods that need to be eaten as soon as possible this helps minimize food wastage.
Avoid Boxes In The Freezer.
Boxes are parasites of space that is very useful in your freezer. This is because they are bulky. If possible, take the contents out of the box and store them in storage bins, and if it contains useful information, cut it out or write it in your dusty notebook that you never use.
Freeze Things Flat
For example, if you have leftover soup, the first store it in a freezer bag and place it flat on the freezers bottom until it is completely frozen. Secondly, stack the bags or line them up in a storage bin; this makes it easy to flick through the arranged pile to find the one you want.
Store Vegetables In Vertical Containers
Crystal light containers are perfect for storing washed and cut veggies since they utilize the freezers vertical space.
Use Magazine Holders
The holders come in handy, especially when storing those meals or sauces that you have frozen flat. You can keep some of them in a container either one standing up or laid on the side attach a laminated notecard on the outside so you can note what is being stored.
Use Binder Clips
If your freezer has slotted shelves use the clips to hold those bags. This will provide enough room on the bottom shelf for you to store more items.
Use Magnetized Containers
These particular containers come in handy to store those small and rarely used (for example, nuts or ginger) on the top part of your freezer.
Remove Shelves
Most freezers come with shelves that honestly dont help you in the organization. Since most of these shelves are removable, you can remove them and customize the space to suit your organizational creativity.
Use Plastic Bins
Plastic bins are useful because you can store different but similar items like poultry and beef. This allows you to have individual spaces for the food you store.
Vacuum Seal Your Foods
Try using a food sealer to tightly seal your bags and remove all the air so you can see whats inside.
Use Chopsticks To Create More Space
Do Use chopsticks to create a base that will allow you to stack another bowl on top.
Keep A Snack Bin
This is imperative, especially when you have kids who you know will want a snack anytime This bin will make it easy for them to find the snack and not ruin your perfectly arranged freezer.
Pre Freeze Your Fruits
The first step is to freeze your fruits on a baking sheet to ensure that the fruit pieces dont clamp and take valuable space. Secondly, store them in your preferred storage choice, and you will find that they will allow for a neat arrangement.
Get Rid Of Expired Items
Most of the time, expired items and bottles of items that dont go bad quickly clutter your freezer. To get more space to dispose of these items and voila you have free space to practice the organization hack, you just finished watching on YouTube.
Line Your Shelves With Easy To Clean Mats
Mats are efficient to clean since any spillage does not stain the freezer shelves, and it is easy to clean off the mess compared to when it drips on the bare surface of the shelves.
Colour Coding
Store foodstuff in colour codes to ensure you dont look for a particular item in the wrong storage compartment to save time and energy.
Store And Arrange Items According To What Items They Go With
You can store them based on your daily eating habits or for convenience like if you use them together when cooking. This hack saves you a ton of space and time/energy.
Always Have Baking Soda In Your Fridge
This hack keeps your fridge smelling good because it absorbs any weird odours that happen to develop in your fridge. You should check its date-time after time replacing after 30 days.
Put A Paper Towel In Your Salad Bags
Greens tend to release moisture and then go bad quicker hence using paper towels in your storage bag ensures that the moisture is absorbed by the paper towel and not by your food; therefore stay fresh longer.
Fill Your Freezer
When you stack your fridge, it tends to get warmer while in the case of freezers, it works better in this state. Stacking the freezer ensures that when you open the freezer door, cold air escapes. The freezer must work harder to maintain the low temperature to sustain the filled freezer, thereby losing less energy. The filled freezer ensures that there is no space for air in the freezer.
Protect Your Eggs
A clear container with a lid not only protects the eggs from breakage but allows for stacking over it to create more organization.
In conclusion, there is no rule of thumb on which hack is better than another; the trick is to check what works best for your freezers current situation and adjust accordingly to get the best out of it.
