Whether you participate in once a month cooking, homemade freezer meals or not, we all need a little freezer organization!
I’m not even sure what is in the back of my freezer right now (or how long it has been there)! Even if you are fortunate enough to have a separate deep freezer for your frozen items, you should still prepare your refrigerator freezer. It can be useful for flash freezing or just keeping a few items at hand while you are cooking!
We ran across the girls at Food Storage Made Easy. We took a look at their site and were in awe (and wished we had more time on our hands) of their great organization tips for the kitchen. I thought they might have something to offer us, since space is an issue for many of us.
Here are some helpful tips from Jodi and Julie:
Top 10 Tips For Organizing Your Freezer (and Clearing It Out!)
1. Take it Out of the Box
Take foods such as corn dogs, Eggo waffles, and chicken nuggets out of their boxes. Typically they have a plastic bag inside the box and you can tuck them into little nooks and crannies a lot easier in a bag than in a box.
2. Move it to the Fridge
Move any items that you think you will use within a week into the refrigerator. This could be your frozen meat, cans of juice, butter, vegetables, etc. If you can use these items on your cooking day, even better! (Bonus: Use Once A Month Meals to create a custom meal plan with these items you already have.)
3. Use Up Close to Empty Items
Look inside containers and packages and use up items that are close to empty. This is especially useful for ice cream and you know your family won’t complain if they have to finish up the last of the ice cream.
4. Plan Meals Around What You Have
Itemize the big items you left and plan some meals this week using them. For example, if you have a package of tater tots or french fries in there you can make a great tater tot casserole.
5. Eat Your Meals!
Spend the next week eating any TV dinners for lunch and dinners. It’s a nice break to just have a frozen TV dinner for each family member instead of preparing a whole dinner. And it uses them up fast! (If you are hoarding freezer meals, eat some of those up too!)
6. Use Your Ice Maker Space
Take out some of the ice from your ice maker and utilize that empty space. Just make sure you fill it up enough to make the little lever go up so it stops making ice.
7. Check Your Open Bags
Locate all the open bags of frozen veggies and plan to use them in meals the next week. You can make great vegetable stews, bean soups, etc. using frozen veggies.
8. Put Similar Items at the Same Level
Rearrange boxes and bagged items to all be at the same level. If you stack things properly you can gain a lot of extra space this way.
9. Maximize Your Door Space
Reexamine your door space and make sure you are fully utilizing it with smaller items.
10. Throw It Out!
Anything you haven’t used in the last few months should be thrown away or donated.
For more great tips and ideas on organizing your kitchen, check out Food Storage Made Easy!
About the Authors: Jodi and Julie are sisters-in-law who blog about food storage over at Food Storage Made Easy. When they stock up on foods they definitely have to shuffle things around in their freezer, refrigerator, and pantry to make room for the items they are storing. Jodi is a stay-at-home mom with two kids and she loves to read, play hockey, and knit. Julie is a stay-at-home mom with one son who loves to play with Photoshop, decorate her house, and play hockey.
