How to organize a fridge and never waste any groceries again

Are you trying to rely less on Uber Eats, but meal prep has you seriously stressed out? Navigating new recipes, mastering kitchen techniques, and finding foods you love are overwhelming enough on their own, and having a messy and cluttered fridge can leave you feeling super unmotivated to cook.

An organized fridge is essential if you want to make cooking more fun, reduce food waste, and make cleaning and maintenance easier. Though the shelving and drawers in a fridge do provide some organization, most of us have so many items stuffed in our fridges that food ends up getting pushed back. Let's be real: most of us are guilty of wasting food, and the reason is almost always that we don't actually know what's in our fridge or where it is. 

If one of your top priorities is to learn how to organize a kitchen, then organizing a refrigerator should be the first thing on your list. With the help of our experts, you'll enjoy using your kitchen in no time, we promise. 

Good to know

Time: 20–30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Good to know: Don't get us wrong, you can definitely do this project all in one sitting, but organizing your fridge can be super-effective when you split up this task. If you do the deep clean when you're low on food, right before going to the grocery store, you can save yourself the stress of scrambling to get it done while your fresh food is sat out on the countertop. 

Here's what you'll need

• A kitchen cleaning spray — like my personal favorite from Method (which you can buy from Grove Collaborative)
• Disinfectant wipes — the Clorox ones from Amazon are fab
• Reusable cleaning cloths or paper towels
• Labels — make your own using a marker (like this Amazon Choice one) and Amazon's own masking tape, or buy these cute pre-written labels from Target
• Glass or acrylic containers and jars — this 10-pack stackable set from Amazon is great, otherwise, you can use Mason and pasta sauce jars you might already have around the house
• A lazy Susan turntable — the Amazon's Choice one is great

How to organize a fridge

Step 1: Clear everything out and clean

Don't know where to begin? Give yourself a totally fresh start by taking everything (and we mean everything) out of your fridge. Line up all of your food and check the dates on your condiments and bottles. Make sure to also thoroughly look over and throw out any expired produce and packaged long-life foods. 

Next, disinfect and clean your surfaces with your all-purpose cleaner (I used my Method one from Grove Co.). Remove any built-in containers to wash with dish soap and spray with a kitchen cleaner, and wipe down your fridge itself for a completely blank canvas to organize.

Step 2: Incorporate trays and containers

If you're going to invest in just one thing to organize your refrigerator, it should be some containers for your shelves. You'll see an immediate difference in how easy it is to find things, and you're way less likely to knock over bottles constantly (so ideal).

"Containers are useful for keeping different food types apart to stop contamination, or even to make your fridge look tidier and aesthetically pleasing," Magnet's commercial range director Hayley Simmons says. "For example, use a tray to store all your raw meats and a basket for your condiments that don’t fit in the door of your fridge."

To keep with the classic clean look, we like acrylic and plastic trays and containers. They're timeless and easy to remove and keep clean, plus they're see-through for added convenience.

Step 3: Use a rotating kitchen organizer

If you keep running out of space in your fridge, it's probably due to a big collection of condiments and sauces. What often happens is all those jars line the back of fridge shelves, despite not ever being used. 

Brenda Scott, professional organizer at Tidy my Space, advises grouping your bottles of sauces and salad dressings together.

"Decide if they get used every day or not," Scott says. "This tells you where to put them in the fridge."

Once you've found the jars and bottles you do use regularly, Scott suggests getting a turntable-style container or a lazy Susan. They rotate, allowing you to easily locate the jar you need without having to pull everything out and clutter your countertops.

Step 4: Stick to one produce type per shelf 

The easiest way to remember what you have in the fridge is to group produce types together. Kristen Hong, nutritionist and author of Fridge Love, suggests creating a produce showcase.

"This means you pull your produce up out of the crisper drawers and eye level — this makes it infinitely more likely that you’ll eat that fresh produce and it reduces food waste," says Hong. "You can place produce upright in jars or you can pre-chop some of your produce for the week and store in glass Snaplock containers."

Using this technique can also help to keep your produce perfectly fresh. Store meat and dairy on the lower shelves, where the fridge temperature is cooler, and use the upper shelves for your less perishable items.

Step 5: Keep foods that have a shorter shelf life at the front of the fridge

This easy tip is nothing short of genius. Simmons points out that food waste is typically due to losing track of what's expiring soon and where in the fridge it is, so start yourself off on a better foot by planning ahead.

"When storing items in your fridge, it is important to keep perishable foods that have the shortest shelf life at the front of the shelf so you can see when they go out of date," she says.

You can also try dedicating a whole separate shelf to the food that needs to be cooked/consumed first and keeping those items at eye level, so they're the first ingredients you look at when you open your fridge as a reminder to use them ASAP.

Step 6: Label everything

It may seem obvious, but labeling everything (and we mean everything) will really up your game when it comes to organizing a refrigerator, according to president of Molly Maid and cleaning and organization pro, Vera Peterson.

"Keep painter’s tape and a permanent marker near the fridge for labeling" says Peterson. "Painter’s tape comes off containers easily for simple cleanup. Take a cue from professional kitchens, and be sure to date your labels so you won’t have to remember which day you made chili for dinner."

For an especially satisfying look, opt for matching labels for your fridge's main drawers and containers, and date individual items with painter's tape and a permanent marker as Peterson suggests.

If you want to DIY your own, then use Amazon's own brand masking tape and this Amazon's Choice permanent marker. If not, and you'd prefer to buy ones, then see our faves below.

FAQs