Tips and tools for organizing your pantry.

A pantry is a wonderful thing. Whether it’s a spare shelf in your cupboard in your kitchen or a full out walk in closet somewhere in your home. To keep your pantry as a positive resource in your home instead of a headache organizing your supplies and making them easy to find is key.

If you don’t have an actually place in your home you have labeled a “pantry” you still might have a place in your kitchen that is functioning as your pantry.

Your first step is to remove everything from the pantry and organize like items together. Baking goods, canned goods, grains and pastas, oils and condiments.

Take inventory of these items making note of how many you have of each item. It’s a good idea to post this list on your pantry door, somewhere in your kitchen, or in your home organizer.

When you place your pantry items back in your pantry make use of some extra basket, small boxes or any extra mini shelving you have or would like to purchase. Maximize shelf and over the door space. Organizers for your foils and plastic wraps are a great invention.

Check the dates on your food items as you put them back in the pantry. Toss any outdated food and items close to their pull date, place them at the front of your pantry and see if you can’t come up with a recipe to use them.

As you stock your pantry put new items in the back and pull the older items up front so you are sure to use your pantry supplies in an efficient cost effective, non-wasteful (tossing items because you used the newer one before the older one which then expired) manner.

And remember to clean your pantry a few times a year to keep pests at bay.

Pantry Organizing Tools