Top 11 Kitchen Organizing Essentials for Streamlined Cooking and a Clutter-Free Pantry
Organizing a kitchen can sometimes feel like doing a giant puzzle that you’ve lost the picture for. With so many new kitchen gadgets, protein powders and a million different utensils to stir, whisk, flip and dice with, we have more items in our kitchens now than ever before. (Did you grow up with an air fryer??)
Adding in a few key storage and organizing pieces can tame the chaos and create categories that create a space that is easy to navigate and maintain.
Here are my top 11 kitchen organizing essentials that I use most frequently in my clients homes.
1. Pantry Bins
Perfect for decanting single-serving items such as granola bars, instant oatmeal packets, microwave popcorn and other small snacks, pantry bins help contain food categories in the pantry and small parts in the kitchen.
Use for:
any food in small to medium bags—rice, nuts, dried fruit etc.
boxes of pasta
small single serving snacks—protein bars, jerky, chips
all the accessory parts to your food processor, kitchen aid or blender
medications
low use categories stored in the hard to reach part of the pantry—baking ingredients, special ingredients for a certain dish/holiday
dog/cat treats
The list is truly endless! Any category of small items is easier to find and use when it’s kept together in a see-through acrylic bin.
*Note: measure your shelves first! These bins from Target come in 2 different lengths, 10” and 14”, and multiple widths so double check you’re getting the correct size before purchasing. Amazon options below.
2. Turntables
If you have weird corners in your pantry (such as in an ‘L’ shaped pantry or cupboard) a turntable will be your best friend. Pop a turntable in that corner and nothing will be stuck in the back!
Use for:
peanut butter, jelly, honey and maple syrup (a breakfast/sweet condiment grouping)
hot sauce, bbq sauce, soy sauce and dressing
oil and vinegar
any bottles or small jars
I’m a fan of the ones with a smaller lip for the pantry, and the ones with a higher edge and handle for the fridge. It makes it easy to pull it forward if you need to since your fridge is typically deeper than your pantry. Both options below.
3. Risers
I use these in multiple ways. First, if you’re stacking your salad plates on top of your dinner plates, pop a riser in between and you won’t have to lift the whole stack of salad plates to get a dinner plate. Same goes for stacking coffee mugs. Adding in a riser instantly gives you an extra shelf and makes everything more accessible and tidy.
I also put shallow risers on counter tops to contain oils or spices that you use frequently but look messy just sitting out. Place them on a riser and get more of your counter top back!
And lastly I use them in pantry’s with bins to create more vertical space. If the shelves of your pantry are really tall, you may be loosing valuable space to unused height. Put in a riser and place bins underneath and on top. In this way you essentially create makeshift drawers increasing your pantry’s storage.
4. Stair-Steps
This classic works excellent for cans, but can also work for jars such as marinara or salsa, and works great as a spice rack too. Always pay attention to measurements! Some tiered organizers are deeper than others, so if you’re looking for one for cans, make sure you don’t buy one geared toward spices because it might be too shallow. I love this one from Target, Amazon options below.
5. In-Drawer Spice Rack
If you want to feel like a Spice Queen Kitchen Magician, get yourself this type of spice rack. Of course your kitchen needs to have enough drawer space to dedicate a whole drawer to spices, but if you can, definitely do it. It makes adding spices and seasonings to your food so fun! Opening my spice drawer and seeing all my faves lined up and slightly tilted towards me makes me feel like I have a little spice butler gently presenting them to me. I hear ‘Madam,’ in my head every time I open it.
6. Tea Organizing/Hydration Station
I call my tea drawer my hydration station. I keep my electrolytes in there too, and it feels so luxurious! If you drink coffee pods, this works well for those little pods as well. (The pods can also be fun in a big cookie jar on the counter if you’ve got the space.) If improving your hydration is on your to do list, making a fun hydration station that you love to look at and interact with can be very encouraging. Here are a couple of my favorites:
7. Small Item Drawer Dividers
I use small dividers for everything from electrolytes like in the hydration station above, to coffee filters or batteries, pens and toothpicks in the ‘junk drawer.’ I’ve used them alongside the spice drawer organizers for spices that come in bags or are oversized, and for small kitchen items like wine and beer openers. They are perfect for your desk drawer or in the bathroom as well!
8. Large Utensil Drawer Dividers
Keeping all of your large utensils tidy can be a challenge. Whisks, spatulas, wooden spoons, the can opener, lemon squeezer, garlic press and meat thermometer don’t always play nice when corralled in a drawer together. Using this type of divider can be incredibly helpful to keep them organized and visible without becoming a tangled mess sliding around. Play with laying them out ‘head to toe’ as well if you’re trying to store items that are opposing shapes.
I’ve included 2 types of drawer dividers: a container type and a drawer divider type. There’s no wrong way to go.
9. Liners
If you live in an older place, lining those drawers is a must. If you can get away with not, that’s always my preference. But sometimes we don’t have kitchen-remodel-money so this is a quick hack that will help stretch the longevity of your drawers and cupboards.
There have been major improvements in the kitchen liner space. You know that one your aunt had that looked like a thin yoga mat with holes in it, and some sauce would inevitably leak through and collect crumbs… Yeah, we don’t have to do that anymore.
Peel and stick wallpaper works great as an upscale drawer liner. There are endless patterns to choose from adding a personalized touch to your cupboards.
Alternatively, there are very robust plastic liners now that hold up very well to cleaning. The trade off is they usually don’t stick to the shelf. Many good options here with different pros and cons.
10. Water Bottle Organizer
This ones a real show-stopper. If you want to get back your time and sanity from having to deal with the reusable water bottle explosion that most family’s deal with, get yourself a water bottle organizer.
Will this solve all your family’s problems… it actually might. Maybe it’s just my family, but the near daily frustration of not being able to get to your favorite water bottle because somebody shoved it in the back when putting away the dishes just vanished once this puppy entered our lives. Highly recommend.
11. Magnetic Knife Strip
Last but not least, the magnetic knife strip. Using one of these beauties over one of those chunky butcher block knife holders will give you back tons of counter space, it won’t dull your knives and has the added bonus of making you look a badass. Practical and makes me feel like Uma in Kill Bill?? I’m in.
Watch for how they need to be mounted. Some come with a 3M sticky strip that you just peel and press on, some need to be mounted with screws which can be a challenge if you want to mount it on a tiled wall/backsplash.
The wood faced one below is a sticky strip mount, the metal front one comes with drywall screws to mount it.
I hope you enjoyed my top 11 kitchen organizing essentials! Let me know in the comments if you have any other faves you think should have made the list.
Happy organizing!