How to Organise Your Kitchen
The ultimate guide to decluttering, zoning and organising your kitchen.
LAST UPDATED: 25/05/2021
There are many different ways to organise a kitchen.
If you’re lucky enough to have designed and built your kitchen from scratch, you’ll likely find it suits your needs quite well already. But there will always be some restrictions that make it difficult.
Kitchen layouts are varied, and so are the preferences of their owners. So I don’t believe there is a solution that fits all. But there is a way you can organise your kitchen to best suit your needs.
This guide offers tips and ideas that you can pick and choose from to create the most efficient kitchen for you.
Sit down with a pen and paper. Draw a map of your kitchen and each cupboard. Then read this guide and come up with a plan that suits you.
There are two ways to then carry out the plan:
1. Organise your whole kitchen in one go
If your kitchen is not too big, too dirty or too disorganised and you’ve got the time and space, you could consider removing everything in one go so that you have an empty kitchen in which to put everything back.
2. Organise your kitchen bit by bit
You can work cupboard by cupboard and category by category. I highly recommend doing it this way as it’s much less stressful and you can come to a stopping point more easily without everything being in a complete mess. The only downside of this is if you’ve got a lot of things which are scattered in different places.
Find a way or combination that works best for you. However you choose to proceed with the organising, at least you’ll have a general plan in place after reading this guide and a good idea where everything is going to go.
A note on pantries/larders
Because the average UK kitchen doesn’t have a larder or pantry, this post will focus on kitchens that don’t. But you can still apply these tips if you have one.
A note on storage solutions
Whenever I talk about a storage solution in this article, I also offer a solution that doesn’t require you to buy storage products. Not everyone likes or has the budget for them and it is possible to organise your kitchen without them. That said, if you’re into storage products, there are many different ones out there, so please take some time to research what’s best for you and your home. Ikea and Amazon are great places to go for affordable solutions.
Before you organise
Whether you proceed bit by bit or all in one go, you’ll need to declutter and clean before you organise.
Declutter your kitchen
There is no point putting things back into your cupboards that you haven’t used in years and have no intention of using.
So make sure to throw out or donate the following
1. Any cookware, appliance, tool or equipment that is an unused duplicate
If you really can’t face throwing it away because you love it or you’re sure you’re going to use it soon, consider storing the duplicate in the back of a corner cupboard or a separate room, such as a pantry, larder, or other storage room.
2. Anything that you don’t intend to use.
Just make sure not to waste food that’s still in date, but donate it to someone who’ll use it.
3. Anything that dampens your mood.
We often buy things with good intentions, such as a juicer, but don’t get around to using it. Whenever we see it, it makes us feel bad that we haven’t achieved what we set out to do.
Similarly, sometimes people buy us gifts, such as a decorative bowl, which we never use because it doesn’t match our taste. It might make us feel guilty when we see it.
Either use things and feel good about them or face facts that they’re not for you and let them go. You deserve to feel positive about everything in your space.
4. Broken things that you’re never going to fix
5. Out of date food
Clean your kitchen
Along with decluttering, it’s essential to clean your items and your space so that your kitchen feels fresh.
Consider cleaning any of the following things that need it:
- On top of and inside cabinets
- On top of and inside cupboards
- The fridge
- The freezer (obviously you’ll need to plan for this one if your freezer needs a defrost so as not to thaw out all your frozen food)
- The oven and hobs
- The sink and or dishwasher
- Kitchen counters
- Clean and polish any glasses or glassware that needs it
- Microwave
- Any baking trays or cooking dishes that have burned on food
Organising your kitchen
Kitchen essentials
Take a moment to note what things in the kitchen are central to you and whether these things need to be in a particular place.
Everything that gets used daily needs to be easy to find, reach, use and put away. Make sure to store the things you use the most at the front of cabinets.
Kitchen zones/categories
Thinking of what you use your kitchen for makes it easier to organise and maintain. There are several different ways you use your kitchen:
- Food preparation
- Cooking
- Baking
- Storing out of season items
- Food storage
- Drink making
- Serving
- Washing dishes
- Doing the laundry
- Cleaning
In my opinion, there are five main organisation categories which cover all these usages:
- Organising your kitchen countertops
- Organising your cookware, tools, appliances and equipment
- Storing food and drinks
- Storing dinnerware, plates and crockery
- Organising your dishwashing/laundry/cleaning area
Organising your kitchen countertops
Before you start thinking about what you’re going to store in your cupboards, decide what you’re going to keep out on your counters.
Consider your style
Do you prefer a minimalistic look, or are you a fan of having everything out and ready to use?
Consider the limitations of your space
How much space do you have? How much do you need?
Make room for your essentials and a few decorative items
As a general rule, if you don’t have much space, I’d recommend keeping out only the things that you use daily or believe to be beautiful enough to be worthy of taking up space.
The odd vase of flowers, plant or fruit bowl is fine if it makes you happy when you look at it.
Make decisions about your food prepping items
Do you want to keep your most use utensils in a pot by the stove and your knives in a knife block, or would you prefer them hidden away in a draw?
Would you like your chopping board out and ready to use at all times, or would you rather store it somewhere?
Make a decision based on whether it makes things easier for you, whether you have space and whether you like the look of them being on display.
Consider where your kettle will live
You might consider keeping your kettle somewhere near to or between the fridge and the sink so that it’s easy to top up and easy to add your milk.
Keep in mind that this should also be the area you store your teas/coffee and your mugs, so there should be suitable space for them.
Organising your cookware, tools, appliances and equipment
These things cover food preparing, cooking and baking and perhaps storing your out of season items.
Here are some tips for organising your cookware/cooking area:
Think about your position
It makes sense for your food preparation and cooking zone to be somewhere between the sink and the oven/hobs since you’ll likely need to be cleaning or rinsing vegetables etc as you cook.
How to handle duplicate cookware
Donate any duplicates you don’t use. That extra space can be used for stacking/storing what you do use in a way that makes it easier to access.
How to store your pots and pans
If you’re lucky enough to have shallow shelves or draws to keep pots and pans in, I’d recommend making use of them. It’ll save you from having to stack them up.
Whether you keep them in a cupboard or draw, pair each pan with its lid. you can turn the lid upside down if you want to stack one pan on top of the other. It’s so handy to have each pan with the correct lid ready to use.
If you don’t have space to stack your pads or store them individually, consider buying a stand or a rack for your lids, so that you can keep them beside your pans in size order.
Keep all heavy cookware in lower cupboards and remember to keep the things you use least at the back and the things you use the most at the front.
How to store baking trays and oven dishes
Store oven dishes in small piles inside each other on shallow shelves. Do the same for baking trays, or if possible, store larger ones on their side for easy access. Again, store heavy items in lower cupboards and less used items at the back.
How to store kitchen equipment
Consider storing the equipment you use every day out on your countertops if you have space.
Keep the items you don’t use every day in lower cupboards, again, placing the ones you don’t use so often at the back.
How to store seasonal cookware
Everyone has one of the annoying corner cupboards where half of the items are difficult to reach. Use this space, your pantry, larder, or another storage area to keep picnic or BBQ accessories or any other out of season cookware, such as a slow cooker.
At the beginning of a new season, or when the items are needed, you can take them out, wipe the spares cupboard down and reorganise it to put the last season’s stuff at the back instead.
How to store your utensils
As I mentioned earlier, how you store your utensils depends on how much space you have, how you like your kitchen to look and what system is most efficient for you.
For ease, you might separate your utensils into those you use every day and those you don’t. You could store things you use every day in a more prominent place, such as in a pot by the stove.
You could also keep a knife block on your kitchen side.
Whatever you store in drawers can be separated into categories using drawer dividers or organisers.
You could either store your chopping board(s) out on your kitchen side ready to use or store them on their side on a shelf or in a cupboard in your food prep area.
Storing food and drinks
First things first, separate your fridge food from your cupboard food.
How to organise your fridge
Consider categorising your fridge into all or some of the following zones:
- Drinks
- Fruit and vegetables
- Sandwich fillings or cooked meats
- Snacks
- Condiments
- Cooking ingredients that need to be refrigerated after opening, such as pastes
- Dairy
- Meat and other cooking ingredients
- A space for leftovers and meals stored in containers/ lunch boxes
Rather than just keeping these on shelves, make it easier for yourself by storing groups in containers or boxes. For example, you could keep all your condiments in a removable container, making it easy for you to get them all out in one go.
Organising a fridge in a shared house
Shared houses could break their fridge down into one shelf per person. This, or a variation of this using containers, might also be useful for some families.
Storing cooked food and limiting food wastage
If you cook in bulk and have leftovers you like to freeze, consider keeping a roll of labels/stickers and a pen in your kitchen drawer or beside your Tupperware so you can easily label food before putting it in the freezer.
As mentioned before, you should also consider leaving space in your fridge for cooked food.
If you’re super organised and want to limit food wastage, you might keep a list of fresh ingredients that you’ve bought, perhaps on a chalkboard or a wipeable pad, a notepad or on your phone, removing the item from the list once you’ve used it. You could take it to the next level even and add sell-by dates to the list.
Storing food containers
Dry Tupperware thoroughly after washing and store them with their lids on. This makes it so much easier and quicker to find.
Throw out any Tupperware that doesn’t have a lid.
How to organise your freezer
How you store your frozen items depends on how much food you have leftover or how much bulk cooking you do.
If your freezer is mainly ingredients, break them down into similar categories as you did with the fridge.
If you keep a lot of leftovers in your freezer, consider breaking those down into categories as well, such as side vegetables, soups, main meals.
How to organise cupboard food
You can increase efficiency in your kitchen by organising your food using the following methods.
First, Break food down into smaller food groups. It makes everything much quicker to find.
Possible groups:
- Pasta, rice and other carbohydrates
- Flours
- Sugars
- Non-refrigerated vegetables such as onions, garlic and potatoes
- Non-refrigerated ingredients, condiments or spreads, such as honey, jam, peanut butter, syrup
- Herbs and spices
- Stocks and gravies
- Tinned food
- Oils and vinegar
- Snack food
- Drinks
- Cereals
Storing cupboard food
Use some or all of the following tips to store/organise your cupboard food:
Alphabetise
Consider alphabetising your herbs and spices. You could store them along your kitchen counter, on a spice rack or laying flat in a draw for easy access. Anything you have in large quantities is much easier to find in alphabetical order.
Create a drink-making zone
I’ve said before, but consider storing your teas and coffee near the kettle, fridge and sink, alongside your mugs, creating yourself a drink-making station.
Consider baskets and boxes
Non-refrigerated food such as potatoes, garlic and onions are great put into a box and stored on a shelf in your cupboard.
You could also have a box for your stock cubes and gravies and a box for oils and vinegar. Or you could have a box of different types of lentils, sugars or flours.
Storing your cupboard food in boxes looks nice and means you won’t have food falling off the shelf – a common problem of trying to stack food straight into a cupboard.
Make use of drawers
If you have a shallow drawer, you could consider laying tins on their side, making it easy to see everything you have at once. Though the rolling around might get annoying, so it’s not for everyone.
Else you could store small packets side by side in drawers rather than stacking them in cupboards. Make sure to keep everything together in rows, so that you can find things more quickly.
Storing straight into a cupboard
If baskets, boxes and jars are not for you and you want to put food straight into your cupboard, make sure to categorise it first.
Put the food you use least at the back. Where possible, store food in rows from the front to the back of the cupboard.
Avoid stacking food is it makes it more difficult and time-consuming to find. Install shelf racks to split tall cupboards up.
Storing food in jars
If you would like to decant your food into jars, follow the same rules as before and group items.
You can keep your spares in categorised boxes either in another further away cupboard or in a pantry, larder or storage cupboard.
Jars look beautiful, but they create extra effort, so you should consider whether you have the time and patience before going ahead with this option.
Storing dinnerware, plates and crockery
These items relate to drink-making, washing the dishes and serving food.
How to store glasses and mugs
Consider keeping them near the sink/dishwasher so that they’re easy to put away.
As I mentioned previously, you could also consider keeping your mugs and glasses near to the sink or fridge for easy access to water, milk or other drinks.
Store mugs and glasses by type and place them in your cupboards in rows from front to back to save you having to reach over smaller glasses to get to the back for larger ones.
How to store plates and bowls
You could keep your plates near to the oven, where you serve food, or again, near to the sink/dishwasher to make it easier to put them away. As with all crockery, it’s a matter of deciding what’s most convenient for you.
Stack only one type of plate or bowl together so you don’t have to move piles of things to get to what you want.
Storing cutlery
If you don’t mind your cutlery being out, you could consider storing it in a tub on your draining board. You would never have to put it away and it would be super easy to get.
Else a drawer with a cutlery organiser usually does the job. Keep the draw near to where you think it’ll be most convenient to you, whether that means your drinks-making area or your cooking or serving area.
Organising your dishwashing/ laundry/ cleaning area
Consider some of the following:
Where to keep your kitchen bins
If you like your bins out of the way, consider keeping them under the sink, in a draw or cupboard. If you’d rather keep it/them out, do that. As with everything, it’s about what suits your style and needs.
Where to store your kitchen towels
Keep towels in a draw by the sink or dishwasher, as this is likely where you’ll most need them.
Storing cleaning products
Washing up caddies are great for storing under your sink. Keep your sponge, cloth, scourer, washing up liquid, gloves in there and grab when you need it. It keeps things neat and tidy and out of sight.
You could use a similar caddy or organiser for other cleaning items. Categorise your cleaning products into rooms or purpose. Then, store them in separate compartments in your cleaning caddy or, better yet, keep each category in a separate box.
Having a separate box for each room/area means you can grab the box required and get going.
If you can’t afford caddies or boxes right now, categorise your products and store them in separate rows in your cupboard.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide. If you need any help or personalised advice, get in touch for a chat about how we can work together.