Dinner Made Simple - Cooking Classes - Organizing Your Pantry

The most important thing to remember when organizing your pantry is to keep like things together (some examples of categories that make sense: canned goods, boxed goods, baking ingredients, spices, oils, vinegars, soft drinks, pastas, grains).

For easy retrieval, place frequently used items on the shelves that are most accessible. Use highest and lowest shelves for little used items.

If your pantry is small, take advantage of a door rack. These can be purchased at your local home improvement store and are easily installed.

Items in hard to reach corners can be placed on a revolving turntable to make bottles and jars easy to find,

Use helper shelves to double the capacity of a pantry shelf.

A tiered shelf organizer will let you see everything from front to back, so there's no searching and no knocking stuff over. These are great for spices and canned goods.

Place cans, jars and bottles on shelves with labels facing front. Line up boxes with their 'spines' facing the front (like library books). You’ll be able to scan the shelves quickly and find what you need in a matter of seconds.

Small items like packages of instant oatmeal, kool-aid, and popcorn can be sorted into small plastic bins.

Take bulk items out of their outer packaging as soon as you get them home and place them in airtight containers. The see-thru type work best. Use a labeler from the office supply store to identify the contents.