20 Simple Kitchen Organizing Ideas You Will Love

As the saying goes, the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s a place where food is prepared, family and friends gather to share meals and stories. 

A proper kitchen requires ample space, storage, appliances, and ingredients. And this can get messy quite easily. 

With these kitchen organizing ideas, you can ensure that the heart of your home is clean, organized, functional, and a happy place for everyone. 

Let’s Break It Down

A Kitchen is more than just a place to cook. There are multiple zones within the kitchen. Organizing anything becomes much easier if you break it down and simplify it. 

This article will focus on the main zones that make up a kitchen such as the kitchen counter, storage, refrigerator, cookware, appliances, and ingredients. 

By breaking it down to these specific areas, you can ensure that all zones within your kitchen are clean, well organized, and easy to use. 

Kitchen Counter

A kitchen counter is one of the main spaces of any kitchen. That’s where the prep area and stove are located. For this reason, it becomes important to keep enough space making it easier to prepare and cook your favourite meals.

1. Tuck everything away when not in use

As simple as this sounds, this is one of the most common reasons why the kitchen gets messy. Using the kitchen counter to store too many things quickly takes up all the space for meal prep and cooking. 

Instead, only keep a few items you regularly use in the space such as cutting boards, a coffee section, etc. 

2. Utilize the vertical space

There is plenty of wall space above the counter that you can utilize smartly. You can add some hooks to store pots & pans, mugs, etc.

You can also add open wall shelves to keep frequently used items such as plates and bowls for easier access.

This is one of the best kitchen organizing ideas to free up some extra counter space.

3. Use jars, trays & bowls

If you like to keep things such as fruits on display, use bowls to keep it organized. In your coffee zone, use trays and jars to keep coffee pods, coffee beans, sugar, milk, or creamer. 

These will keep things restricted in specific zones and make sure, you don’t keep them elsewhere even out of habit. 

4. Categorize by zones

Categorizing your counter space by zones is another great way to keep it organized. Keeping a specific zone to prepare your morning coffee and a dedicated area for meal prep ensures you have enough space to prepare food. 

5. Clean after every meal 

No matter how organized you keep things, as long as you’re using your kitchen counter, it will create clutter.

Make it a habit to wipe and clean your kitchen counter after every meal or every time it gets dirty after use. 

Storage

Another key component of keeping a kitchen organized is having enough, accessible and functional storage spaces.

By adding some of the below storage elements to your kitchen, you can make sure it looks tidy without compromising on the kitchen essentials you need. 

6. Cabinets

Kitchen cabinets are key to any kitchen’s storage. Adding enough cabinets below your kitchen counter space is so important to make sure you never run out of space to store your most valuable kitchen essentials.

It also ensures that those appliances are easy to access and put away after use.

7. Wall Shelves

Wall shelves are a must for your kitchen organizing strategy. Depending on your needs, you can choose full-wall cabinets or open shelves. 

Either is fine and will help you store things neatly and easily access them when you need to. Wall shelves are great for storing daily-use items such as cutlery and crockery, mugs, and glasses.  

8. Drawers

Another cool addition to your kitchen storage is drawers, it’s easy to access and ideal for storing light appliances that you use regularly.

It’s also a great place to store your spices. You can convert an entire drawer into a spice rack if you use a lot of herbs and spices in your cooking. 

9. Dividers

If you want to take your kitchen organizing to the next level, consider adding dividers inside your drawers. 

With dividers, you can organize your drawers neatly and easily store everything in its place with minimum effort. You can find things easily without having to move around too many things and creating a mess. 

10. Island

If all your cabinets and wall shelves aren’t enough, consider getting a movable island with built-in storage. 

Not only does it give you more storage on the sides, but also gives you additional kitchen counter space. Kitchen Islands are a great way to add style to your kitchen. You can keep your favorite cookbooks and other essentials on your kitchen island. 

Refrigerator

The refrigerator is one of the easiest spaces to get messy. If you don’t have a system to keep things organized and neat, it can become dirty very quickly. 

But worry not, with the below kitchen organizing ideas you will learn how to keep your refrigerator clean and organized, and your food fresh. 

11. Group foods by type

One of the most important things you can do is to group foods by type and dedicate a space to keep them. 

A refrigerator usually has the following parts. Upper shelves, freezer, drawers, and door shelves. Keep leftovers and other ready-to-eat foods on the top shelves to make sure it doesn’t get contaminated by raw foods.

The freezer is for raw foods such as meat, poultry, fish, etc, which will keep any juices from flowing to other foods. The drawers are for fruits and veggies, while the door shelves are for condiments, juices, etc. 

12. Get clear food storage bins 

The best way to keep your refrigerator organized is to store foods categorically in clear food storage bins. 

This makes it super easy to keep things arranged in a way that’s easy to access and clean. 

13. Store leftovers in sealable containers

Leftover food can make your fridge smell bad and dirty if not stored properly. The solution? Sealable containers.

By storing leftover food in sealable and airtight containers in the dedicated space, you can keep it fresh and free from bacteria. 

14. Keep fruits and veggies separately 

You should keep fruits and veggies in the fresh produce drawer in separate storage bins. This is to keep it organized and easier to access when needed.

Another important reason to do this is that some fruits release ethylene gas which can cause some vegetables to ripen and spoil easily. 

15. Toss out any old food regularly

The refrigerator can get packed very easily. Food consumption has never been higher and today the average household consumes so much food.

Make it a habit to toss out old food that you know you will not use regularly to prevent spoilage, bad odor, and cross-contamination. 

Cookware, Appliances & Ingredients

Appliances and Ingredients are what take up all the space in any kitchen. Depending on how serious of a chef you are at home, you may have a lot of appliances, ingredients, and spices that need to be stored properly. 

16. Hang Pots & Pans or Store them Away

Let’s start with pots and pans. One of the most important cookware that takes up a lot of space. 

If you have created enough cabinet space, that would be the best place to store them as it keeps away dust and dirt, and is still easily accessible. Another way to store them is to have hooks on the wall above the counter and hang them. 

17. Create Sections

Categorize and organize your appliances and cookware by sections. For instance, keep all pots and pans in one area, and electric appliances such as microwave, kettle, mixture, juicer, etc in one area.

Have this rule when storing them as well as when using them on the kitchen counter. Store them in the same cabinet and use them in the same zone on the kitchen counter. 

19. Label Everything

A lot of spices and herbs look similar and you don’t want to confuse them. Make a list of all the ingredients you have and make labels.

Label all the jars and bottles, this will make it so easy to keep everything organized and save you a lot of time. 

20. Get a Spice Rack

Storing spices can become challenging and get messy if you keep them in packets and use clips to close them.

Instead, invest in a spice rack or customize one using dividers in one of the drawers. It’s a great way to store all your spices in one drawer and easily take them out when you need them. 

Conclusion

Keeping your kitchen organized and tidy can become a challenge without the proper storage and systems. But with the above kitchen organizing ideas, I hope now you have a good understanding of how to do it and have a kitchen that’s clean and organized and one that you love to use.