How to Organize a Pantry

The modern home, whether an apartment, condo, or house, isn’t complete without the kitchen. This includes the kitchen pantry. The pantry is where the food is stored, out of sight, preserved at a consistent, mild temperature to keep it fresh. It may be found as a bulky larder, a space as small as a few cupboards, or a room all its own. 

The pantry can become a cluttered mess without an effective organization system in place. It’s important to know how to organize your pantry to provide your family with healthy, quick snacks and meals, without wasting money on spoiled food. Pantry organization is easy to maintain once you have the storage area customized to fit your kitchen habits.

If you are looking for kitchen pantry organization ideas, read on to learn more about how to organize kitchen pantry spaces. From cubbies to cabinets, small pantry spaces to deep shelves, there’s a pantry organization solution for every kitchen.

What Do You Put in a Pantry?

The kitchen pantry can be any dedicated location in the kitchen, as long as the primary use is to store food. Depending on the amount of room in the pantry, a variety of supplies can be stored safely in the pantry for easy access at meal time.

Basic Food Staples

Nonperishable foods and baking or cooking supplies work well in the pantry. This includes canned goods, dry goods such as flours or sugars, and boxed mixes and cereals. 

Nonperishables are ideal for pantry storage, as the enclosed space keeps the moisture out of the room and maintains a consistent temperature over time. Some vegetables, such as garlic, onions, or potatoes, can be stored in the pantry, ideally in an open basket with plenty of air flow and no moisture.

Nothing should be stored in the pantry that could spoil or contaminate the food. Be careful not to leave unsealed jars of liquids, or anything that will mold. This can include butters and some types of oils, so these are all best stored in a refrigerator. Fruits and cured meats can also go bad in a pantry. 

The basic kitchen staples that your family uses daily can be lined on storage shelves or arranged in baskets or containers. With the right pantry organization plan, you can set up a basket of snacks for the kids, keep the ingredients for a weeknight dinner at hand, and drinks for entertaining stashed out of sight.

Nonconsumables

The right sized kitchen pantry can be a good place to store inedible supplies, too. Small appliances that aren’t used quite as often as the toaster or coffeemaker can be kept in dedicated lower cabinets. 

Other inedible pantry mainstays can include:

• Extra rolls of trash bags or paper towels can be stored alongside freezer or sandwich bags, parchment paper, or tin foil. 
• Utilize dividers and riser shelves to make room for storing serving platters and dishware, or even a basket of extra plastic food storage containers.
• If there’s open wall space or drawers in the pantry, use the space for rarely used cooking utensils, such as bulky BBQ tongs, forks, or brushes.  
• Rather than waste empty floor space, use large plastic bins to store pet treats and food, or separate out the recycling with crates for glass, aluminum, and paper collection.

The idea is to keep the pantry stocked with supplies that make the daily task of meal preparation easier. For some, it means storing only food, while for others it may allow for storing the recycling or even a cleaning station with a mop and bucket tucked in a corner. How you arrange your pantry organization layout and the supplies you choose to keep in it will depend on the amount of room and the way you use your kitchen.

How to Organize a Pantry in 7 Steps

To get your pantry organization project started, here’s a list of the essential steps to take for the best results.

Empty the Pantry.

The first step in pantry cabinet organization is to know what space and supplies you have to work with. 

Remove everything from the shelves and cupboards. Be sure the cabinets and shelves fit the pantry space without creating dead zones of inaccessible or unusable space.

Clean the Pantry.

A key consideration in all kitchen pantry organization ideas is to create and maintain a clean, healthy place to store food. To do this, scrub the shelves and walls clean to remove dust and grime to start fresh. 

Add vinyl wallpaper as shelf liners, or update the walls with new paint or wallpaper designs. The pantry need not be boring if you have the space to be creative with it.

Inventory and Categorize the Pantry Supplies.

Taking inventory is essential to pantry organization. It means making sure the supplies you have on hand are all items that your family uses, and that nothing has spoiled over time. For small pantry organization projects, this is particularly important because space is at a premium and there’s no room to waste on inedible food or seldom used appliances.

The secondary purpose of taking inventory is to categorize the supplies, so food supplies that are similar can be grouped together when put back on the shelves. 

Some examples of categories to sort supplies into:

• Baking supplies, such as flours, sugars, and other dry ingredients.
• Cooking oils and bases, like olive oil, unopened sauces, and flavoring ingredients.
• Canned goods, packets, and boxed foods, and staples like pasta noodles or rice.
• Snacks or lunch staples for the kids, quick to grab and easy to find.
• Entertaining and party supplies, from drinks to servingware. 

Another way to group food supplies is to arrange them by meal, such as storing dinner’s canned vegetables in different rows than perhaps canned pears for breakfasts. Remove the random shelf-placements that have to be searched through every day. As a menu planning aide, set up individual baskets for every day of the week, and include the ingredients for daily dinners for each day, grouped together.

Use Containers for Dry Goods.

Hand in hand with taking inventory is to condense the excess packaging of boxes and bags whenever possible. A collection of clear pantry containers has multiple benefits for establishing and maintaining an organized pantry.

Here are a few benefits included with switching to container storage:

• They’re easy to see the contents on the shelf.
• No more open boxes to create messes. No more leaking flour bags.
• Uniform sizes and shapes let you make the most of every inch of shelf space.
• Solid, airtight construction preserves the food longer, and keeps pests out.

As part of your pantry organization efforts, it’s a good idea to prepare the containers for the pantry contents by washing and drying thoroughly before use. It is useful to apply labels to each different container. The labels can be as simple or as creative as you wish, as long as they are clear enough to keep someone from mixing up the all-purpose flour from the cake flour when they’re in a hurry. 

With the right sized container, multiple small packages of dry goods or pasta can be condensed into a single bin to save room on the shelves, which can prevent clutter or excess purchases. Finding the right container system is an important and useful piece of the puzzle as you implement your pantry cabinet organization.

Categorize the Pantry Space.

When determining how to organize your pantry, consider the best location within the pantry for each supply category. For instance, items collected into a kids’ “snack box” should be kept on a lower shelf where it can be easily reached. Items for baking projects would do well at your eye level to make it easier to find specific ingredients, and quick dinner supplies should be kept where they are easy to find and access. 

Once you determine where each food category will reside on the shelves, you can mark or label the area to keep the supplies together. Use baskets, trays, or other organizers to block off the space to be sure everything will fit. Install additional shelving as needed to make sure there is enough room for everything you want to keep in the pantry.

When the locations for food supplies are accounted for, look to the remaining open areas for other kitchen-accessible storage, such as the best place to keep small appliances or less-often used cutlery and utensils. 

A few extra tips for most efficient storage of kitchen tools:

• Individual items should be kept grouped and stored on shelves or inside cupboards if they’re available.
• Heavy objects should be stored as close to the ground as possible to prevent injury or damage from drops or falls. 
• Larger items, such as storage bins for pet food or recycling bins, are best on the floor and out of the walk way.

When considering how to organize a pantry, remember to keep everything where it can be easily found and can be replaced consistently in the same location after each use. Make the focus of your pantry organization the goal of keeping everything clutter free and easy to find, and don’t overcomplicate the placement by puzzle-piecing things together that will have to be moved to find other items stored at the very back or in corners.

Add Extra Storage Features to Make the Best Use of the Space.

Extra storage shelves or organization features that could be utilized include adding risers or racks, or cabinet organizers such as lazy susans for deeper shelves to keep supplies more easily in reach. This could include can dispensers for canned goods, or bottle racks for wines or sodas.

If you are trying to organize a pantry with deep shelves, or looking for ideas on small pantry organization, remember to utilize every available space with storage shelves, under-cabinet baskets, wall shelves, or hanging cabinet door racks that keep items within reach. Wall mounted solutions, like wall shelves or magnetic bars, can help when there is sufficient extra wall space. Use lazy susans and pantry organizers to keep items placed neatly and orderly. 

Make sure everything is in place, secure, and unobtrusive to pantry access before restocking the pantry.

Stock the Pantry.

When implementing the process of how to organize a pantry, the final step is to stock the pantry with your kitchen staples in the new and improved, organized layout. Put everything in the planned and labeled containers, and line them up on the prepared shelves in a clean and orderly fashion, alongside baskets of nonperishable food and supplies. 

Once everything is arranged, enjoy! Keep the pantry organized going forward by tidying it up a few times per month, rather than waiting until it is completely out of hand