How to organize your Refrigerator

Refrigerator Organization

With so many groceries to stow, it's important to keep your refrigerator clean and categorized. From sanitizing shelves and organizing items to tips for tossing perishables, we have every detail covered.

Well, you don’t want your fridge to fall into the same trap. Here are some tips to get your fridge in order.
Grab Your Garbage Can As always, the first step to getting organized is figuring out what should stay and what should go. Go through your entire fridge and toss the items that you know you won’t eat (like Aunt Milly’s fruitcake) or food that’s expired (like the milk you bought before you went on vacation).
While you’re doing this, look for any similarities between the stuff you’re junking. Do you bring a lot of doggy bags home from restaurants? Do you buy too much of certain items? Do you buy a large jar of an ingredient for a recipe you make once, then never use that ingredient again? If there are any patterns, you should adjust your cold-storage habits.
Prominent Places for Popular Items Designate the easiest-to-reach areas to be only for the foods and drinks that you use often, and hard-to-get-to areas for what you don’t eat or drink that often, but won’t spoil.
For instance, keep your milk and juices on the most accessible shelf, butter and eggs on the second most accessible shelf. Also, place taller drink containers at the back of the shelf and shorter containers in front, so you can easily see what you have (or what you need).
Make Sure Everything’s Cold Enough The temperature in a refrigerator isn't the same throughout. Some spots, like the top of the door, are warmer, while others, like the drawers at the bottom, are colder. You should take advantage of this when you decide where to place perishable items in the fridge.
The most perishable items, like meat, fish and dairy, should go as far down the main compartment as is convenient. Don’t put them in one of the doors compartments, because they may spoil more quickly.
Use the Compartments...Sometimes The meat drawer is the best place to store raw meat because it’s usually the coldest part of the fridge. And the vegetable crisper drawer is a little more humid, perfect to keep your greens from turning into browns too quickly.
But just because it says "eggs" and "butter" on some of the compartments on the fridge door doesn’t mean that you should use them for that. These warmer areas on the door are better suited for less-perishable items in jars or bottles like salad dressing, salsa, condiments, jellies, jams and canned drinks.
A Home For Little Things You often find cheeses, fruits, vegetables and other small things in a refrigerator perched precariously on top of a jar or rolling around the bottom of a drawer. Get a handle on these little foods with a plastic container designated for each type. Then you’ll know exactly where to find any cheese, for example, and not have to search for the little piece of Gruyere that found its way to back of the bottom shelf.
An organized refrigerator starts when you put your groceries away. When you have a system, it becomes easier to put food away as well. You’ll really appreciate an organized refrigerator when you’re in the middle of cooking a big meal, and realize that you need something immediately, and you know exactly where it is.