5 Fridge Organizing Hacks You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

Saving your sanity one tip at a time.

The refrigerator is one of those places that we regret neglecting. As soon as you realize it's time to do a fridge-haul, it's already too late. Questionable smells are seeping from unknown places, forgotten fruits are leaking their juices, and five bottles of your favorite dressing are teetering on their tops, working to muster every last bit of the concoction before they're tossed. 

Let's face it: No one likes cleaning out the fridge.

But what if there were some changes you could make to the way you stored fridge items? And what if these changes brought you a sense of calmness and renewed appreciation for your food-cooling machine? Surely, you'd want to try them out, wouldn't you?

Thought so.

Next time you're found huffing and puffing at your disaster of a fridge, try to make one of these smart changes to your organization.

Make a condiment caddy

Alton Brown's youtube channel

Nothing's worse than reaching for the ketchup, only to be dismayed at the lack of ketchup actually in the bottle. You frantically try to force the remaining bit out of the nozzle, only to splatter a sad final spew onto your plate. But not anymore. Remember Alton Brown from Food Network's Good Eats? Well, even though the show stopped running in 2012, Brown's continued sharing his scientific cooking methods and sardonic humor—this time, with his large YouTube following. And one of those bits he's blessed YouTubers with is a genius remedy to the condiment catastrophe. He suggests using the bottom of an egg carton to place your condiment bottles in upside-down. This way, they're neatly organized, and all the good stuff slowly seeps to the bottom (or top, actually), ready for you to get a good, hearty squeeze. Watch his video here.

Line the shelves with stick-and-peel plastic wrap

The worst part about cleaning the fridge is having to reach into awkward spots to try and get every last crevice. Instead of tasking yourself with such an unglamorous to-do, make cleaning day easier on yourself with plastic wrap. If you line your shelves with stick-and-peel plastic wrap, come cleaning day, all you'll have to do is peel the wrap off and apply a new layer. Spills won't stand a chance.

Use a turntable or lazy susan

Tired of leaving items in the back of the fridge, only to find them when it's much too late? It usually starts when you're rummaging for something specific, and then you see a moldy container full of leftovers from two months ago. If only you had remembered sooner that you had those leftovers, you probably wouldn't have wasted them. To give every item in the refrigerator a fighting chance, place a turntable on one of the shelves, this way you can view your condiments and leftovers like you look at earrings at a jewelry kiosk. No chicken parm left behind.

Clip your beer into place

Because no fridge is complete without some alcoholic refreshments, right? Instead of taking up valuable real estate with a giant box of beers, take them out of the box and stack them on their sides. Then, to keep the stack of beers from rolling away and becoming a disaster, use a binder clip to serve as a stopper on the side that's not touching the wall. This trick only works if your refrigerator shelf is made of wires (in comparison to plastic shelves), of course, but it's a handy idea if you love your local hops.

Label like a restaurant

If you've ever worked in a restaurant or any food service job, you know that taking note of ingredients' expiration dates is, like, really important. One way food joints do this is to place stickers with the dates on the containers. This way, when you're reaching into your inventory, you know immediately which one was purchased first and therefore should be used first. Use this simple organization tip at home by placing a marker and a roll of masking tape nearby. Every time you put a Tupperware with leftovers into the fridge, scribble the date it was made. You can place a date-sticker on just about everything in the fridge so you always know when something is too old and ready to go.