How to Organize Your Fridge

“Organize my fridge!?”…you might be thinking… “Don’t be ridiculous!” Take this scenario: You’ve been craving {insert food here} and it’s time to enjoy! You go to the fridge, open the door and riffle around to find the leftovers box! You open it and…wait {chosen food} isn’t supposed to be THAT {color/texture/smell}… because it’s SPOILED! You think to yourself, but I JUST put it in there a few days ago! Sadly I think that everyone has had this happen at least ONCE in our lives. Hey, it happens! Life gets busy, last minute plans happen and leftovers should be sacrificed, especially when they’re REALLY good!

Enter “The Organized Fridge”. Start the New Year with a clean and organized fridge! Between hosting and attending holiday parties, office gatherings and family meals the fridge can start to get packed during the holiday season. Read these tips below and keep that food on the safe side of becoming a science experiment!

Fridge “Deep Clean”

Triage the fridge of all expired items. Between “Sell By”, “Use By”, “Best Before” and “Package Date”  it can feel like another language trying to decide if something is safe to keep. Here are a few simple ways to remember.

  • Do the sniff test, if something smells funny EVEN if it’s not expired go with your gut and toss it. Forget about “Sell By” and never eat past the “Use By” date. Kiss it good bye and put it on the shopping list.
  • As for “Best Before” and “Package Date”, those you can look at together. If stored correctly, things like dairy products and meats can go a day or two past the listed date. Now, if it’s growing green foliage throw that sucker out!“Best Before” doesn’t always mean “Spoiled After”.  Keep an eye and know that you have a day or two leeway.
  • The “Package Date” comes in handy on things like meats where you want to know when it was, well, packaged to determine when the proper waste basket toss needs to happen. Long winded, but I hope it helped clarify a little!

Clean the fridge: Empty your fridge and give it a thorough sanitizing cleaning! I’m talking remove those shelves and drawers and give them a good deep wash and sanitation cycle also! You should be wiping down your fridge weekly and deep cleaning no more than once a month.  Wipe the exterior and handles and check that none of the door seals are broken. If they are, you’ll need to replace them ASAP since that is what keeps the cool in and the “spoil” out!

Reload: Putting the food and such back in the fridge, make a note of what was spoiled or needs to be replaced on your shopping list. This is also a good time to do some mental meal planning and use up ingredients that might be on the cusp of consumable.

Leftovers: The rule in our house is NO longer than 4 day son leftovers EVEN if they don’t make the sniffer pass out. We make sure to put the date on the top of the box before we put it in the fridge.  If you so choose, you can transfer your home cooked or takeout leftovers to a plastic or glass container and use a sticky note to list the contents and date. Glass is nice when re-heating since you don’t have to transfer it from the plastic container and there is less dishes to clean up. Remember, you can also freeze quite a few things and if you think ahead that you might have leftovers and won’t eat them in the 4 day window, pop those guys in the freezer with a date on them and use them at a later date!

Tip: Storing leftovers at eye level will help you remember they’re there and use them up!