31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration Day 6: How to Organize Your Refrigerator

Ha! Me writing a post on how to organize your refrigerator?!

When I told my husband what I was going to write about, he looked at me as if I had horns growing out of the top of my head or something equally strange.

“I didn’t know you had any organization to your refrigerator,” he said to me.  I then proceeded to show him what organization I do have in place.  After his eyes started to glaze over, I showed mercy and told him he could go on his merry way.  Organization is not my guy’s thing.

So prepare to be inspired or not, as the case may be.

I don’t remove everything from my refrigerator when I clean it but this time I did.  Something had spilled and the liquid had managed to creep into the cracks of several shelves.

Out everything came…

So I guess the first thing to do when organizing your refrigerator is to:

#1 remove everything or at least clear off a shelf so you can wipe it down before putting everything back

#2 I like to put paper towels in my crisper because sometimes things get messy in those crispers.  You ever have that experience?  With the paper towel in place, it will absorb liquid from any vegetables that really should have been eaten long before.

Now here is my own personal way of organizing this wonderful appliance.

In the top crisper I place snack type foods – tortillas, deer bologna (maybe you have luncheon meats?), small blocks of cheese and any onions that I only needed a portion of for cooking and which now must be refrigerated.  I could put the onion in the 2nd crisper but for some reason I started putting them in the top one and that’s what I’m used to doing now.

My 2nd crisper is used for veggies.

My 3rd crisper is used for large bags of cheese or fruit (like apples).  I don’t usually buy meat since we have elk meat in our freezer so I don’t need to use this crisper for meat.

The door is where I store condiments – like with like.  Salad dressing goes with salad dressing.  Makes sense, right?  Yes, I know there are 4 mustard’s (not counting the Dijon).  There’s a reason.  I can’t remember it right now but I just know there has to be one. 🙂

The other shelves in my refrigerator – well I just put my large items on the top shelf with the most frequently used items in the front.

That’s about all the organization I have.

What works for you?

Here are my other posts on 31 Days to Kitchen Inspiration.