Cancel food waste and save big bucks by following these expert tips for an organised fridge and freezer
These days, a trip to the supermarket is a recipe for heart palpitations, yet many of us are letting a fortune in food quietly rot in the fridge or languish as unlabelled mystery meat in the freezer.
Restoring order to your cold storage has multiple benefits, serving up more space, reducing food waste (and saving your coin), and even making it easier to plan your weekly meals.
How to organise your fridge
Fridge Tetris:
Make the most of every inch with smarter storage solutions. “Stackable containers are a must-have. When looking for fridge storage, ensure the containers are stackable so that you can easily fit more than one container per shelf,” says organisation expert Annalise Muir of The Home Label. “This will save so much space, and also makes it easy to see what ingredients you have in your fridge to avoid food wastage.”
Clear out the bulky bread bags and cardboard boxes, and give your freezer the same storage treatment, with square or rectangular stackable containers. If space is seriously tight, try this trick: use resealable plastic bags to freeze everything flat, from bulk-bought meat to leftover casseroles. Label neatly, then file them in order (oldest at the front or top) – plastic magazine or letter files are a handy hack to keep everything together.
Made to last:
To keep produce fresh and reduce waste, look beyond the crisper drawer. “Store your fresh fruit and veggies in containers with an air vent, which allows for optimal ventilation and will keep them so much fresher than simply storing them in the vegetable section of your fridge,” says Annalise. “Containers with a drainage tray are also very handy as you can wash your fruit and veggies, and then pop them into the containers with confidence that any excess water will drip past the drainage tray, leaving you with ready-to-eat produce.”
If you’ve still got produce on the turn, look at ways to transform it or transfer it to the freezer. Turn leftover herbs into pesto, chop and freeze veggies for an easy soup base down the line, or cut stale bread crusts into croutons.
Order up:
Relying on memory is a rookie error we’ve all fallen foul of, resulting in frozen artefacts of unknown provenance. To avoid playing the memory game, use sticky labels to mark the contents and date before freezing.
Labelling is a handy organisational tool, too, says Annalise. “Once you have labelled your containers, you can then categorise and group similar items together, so vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat would all be in separate groups within your fridge. This helps create a system so anyone looking in the fridge can see exactly where to find what they are looking for, and where to put the items back.”
From left: Vacane fruit/vegetable storage containers, $49.99 (for two), from Space General; 2.5L fridge storage, $13, from Kmart; Living & Co fridge bin, $5, from The Warehouse.
Shop at home:
Now it’s nicely organised, you can save money by shopping from the fridge before hitting the supermarket. Start your weekly meal planning with a quick fridge audit – bonus points if you wipe it down at the same time.
Be inspired by what needs to be used up: an open jar of curry paste, or some slightly wilted herbs. Raid the freezer for (neatly labelled) frozen leftovers and schedule those for nights you’ll be too busy or knackered to cook.
Text: Shelly Tustin Photography: Helen Bankers, Supplied
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