My 5 Best Pantry Organization Tips

Friends, hi!

You know Virgo season is hitting hard this year when even I take to the pantry with new canisters and labels.  Virgo season would have us holding ourselves to our highest standards and I’ve taken that on, and I’ve taken it personally.

I’m working with two pantries these days. In the Houston kitchen (pictured above) I cleared and organized a pantry I actually never organized when I moved in a (yikes) year ago. Watch the satisfying (only slightly chaotic) transformation here!   In New Orleans I’ve paired down and purged ingredients for guests coming in the next few weeks.  My dad, my big sister, and Beyoncé (my favorite Virgos) would be proud.

As a recipe tester with too many different kinds of cocoa powder, I need my pantry to werk.  Here are five of the products I use to get my pantry (and thus my life) together. There are some splurges and some saves and it all comes together to function:

•  1. Splurge on the best dry good containers and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.  A few years back my friend Nicole was hit by a nasty case of pantry moths and I most immediately put a basket of dry goods together to help restock her pantry with a condolence card because it was exactly that serious. If you know, you know – and I pray you never know.  When pantry moths get into your dry goods you simply have to throw EVERYTHING away.  For a baker, this is at best a bummer, but more accurately – a tragedy. In my experience, the best containers are these Progressive Prokeeper Containers  or this Prokeeper 9-Piece Set for their tight seal and thoughtful extras (like the terra cotta disk to keep brown sugar moist).  In my opinion, these are far and away better containers than the OXO containers with the pop button on top.  The way that I can easily pull the lid off those containers? Get outta here with those things.

•  2. Use tiered spice racks and small lazy susans to bring visibility to the pantry.   I don’t even want to tell you how many duplicates of ingredients I had hiding in the back of my unorganized pantry. In this economy? I’ll splurge on the tiered spice rack and humbly work through the three open jars of chili powder I have thaaaaanks.

The clear lazy susans are great for storing all of my extracts and baking spices.  I keep these on the middle shelf of my pantry where all the ingredient duplicates once hid.  The lazy susan is close enough for me to reach and spin and thankfully, no more hide-and-seek.

•  3. Mason jars are great for storing what was once a large amount of say ingredients into a more compact container. They’re affordable and super versatile. I make all my homemade dressings in mason jars and store them in the fridge and I always end up take a few jars camping with sauces and marinades.

•  4. Use Clear bins to gather groups of ingredients.  Why do I have five different kinds of cocoa powder? Obviously because each one is essential!  Bins come in handy for misc items like bottles of corn syrup and cans of evaporated milk. Consider it the junk drawer of the pantry.

•  5. Everything in the pantry deserves a label. I’ve gone to these great lengths and I want to know exactly what’s what when I swing those pantry cabinet doors open.   Brown kraft tape and sharpie markers are my secret weapon. The kraft paper is easy to write on and most importantly, can easily be removed from the canisters and jars without leaving a sticky residue. Cheaper than a label maker and just as addictive.

In full transparency, I need to reorganize my pantry every three months or so. In reality I do it maybe, once a year.  God bless Virgo season.