The pantry. How we all love it! It is your personal snack stand you create in your home of snacks and goodies. If you have kids, they probably frequent it way more than you would like constantly complaining they are hungry. Honestly, how many snacks do kids need in the day? It boggles my mind some days. But the constant shifting around cardboard boxes, removing empty ones and digging deep back into those pantry shelves to grab scattered items was really getting to me. I pretty much snapped one day and said I’m done with it all. It was finally time to organize our pantry using containers and bins. I’ll show you below on how to organize a pantry.
My husband said it was a waste of my time and it made no sense. The kids didn’t understand why either. But boy were they wrong! The process on how to organize a pantry took a few days to get it all right. But with some preparation and planning, you will have your pantry organized to perfection in no time, looking clean and amazing and you will never turn back. I promise.
Take Inventory & Order Supplies
Firstly, take inventory of everything you have in your pantry. This way you can see what you have and how many containers and snack trays you will need. Secondly, list all of the items by writing them down and which container size you think the item would fit in. Try your best to estimate it, as sometimes the item will take up more or less room once emptied into a container. Lastly, order storage containers with multiple sizes, trays for snacks (that have removeable dividers), container bins for canned items and all-purpose containers for other items that can’t go into storage containers (for example, peanut butter, honey, baking mixes, etc).
For my pantry and my needs, I ended up ordering 38 storage containers, 6 snack trays, 2 container bins for canned goods and 2 all-purpose storage containers for miscellaneous items. This will take some trial and error (and a few orders to Amazon) to get it just right. But once you have all of your containers ready to go, you can get started! The first day took me about 5 hours to do the process below and then I tweaked things and ordered more supplies in the next few days. In a week’s time, your pantry will be looking organized and beautiful.
The Big Clean Out
This is the best part in my opinion because you get to take everything out of your pantry and clean it out! Go through everything and decide what you are going to keep. If an item is almost finished, throw it out and buy a fresh one if it is an item you will buy again. If not, just say goodbye to it forever. Discard items that have expired. Take note of items that need to be refreshed and purchase those during your next shopping trip.
Next, clean out the pantry shelves of any crumbs, dust or debris. This is the perfect chance to have your shelves spotless before filling them again.
Filling Your Storage Containers
With everything out of the pantry, start grouping items that go together if they are going in an all-purpose bin or a container bin. Then start going to town on the items that need to go into storage containers. Once you start pouring the contents in each storage container, you’ll be able to see which containers they fit best. *Note, items from Costco will take up a few containers. You probably won’t want for example 3 containers of Oat Squares Cereal, so you’ll have some extra in the bag for a future refill. For some items you will have an overage, which annoys me, but it is going to happen. I placed these overages on the top shelf of the pantry, so they are out of sight and I don’t have to see them.
After everything is in a container, you will want to label them. The set I mentioned above comes with chalkboard labels and a chalkboard marker. I wanted a more minimalistic look, so I purchased these standard labels. They were perfect and had almost every label for every item in my pantry. I also purchased a custom set for items that still needed a label.
Once everything was in their respective containers and labeled, it was time to place everything back in the pantry. You may need to raise or lower shelves to fit your containers. I grouped my shelves by baking items, then canned goods with grains and pastas and then snacks on a lower shelf for the kids to reach. The bottom area of your pantry is a great place for any paper products, so I placed our paper towel rolls in a wicker basket to keep them in order.
Collect all of the empty cardboard boxes and flatten them so they are ready to be recycled. My daughter said the garbage men were going to question why we ate so much food that week (haha)! But it felt great to get rid of them all and not have to see them in in my pantry anymore.
Storage Container Sizes with Items Listed
As mentioned above, in how to organize a pantry, I ordered these storage containers in multiple sizes, trays for snacks, container bins for canned items and all-purpose containers for other miscellaneous items. Below are the foods that fit each size container if you need a guide and to help save you the trouble of figuring it out for yourself. The set of storage containers had 24 in them (6 XL, 6 Lg, 6 Med, 6 Small).
X-Large Container (2.8 Liters)
- Cereal
- Granola
- Flour
- Pancake Mix
- Spaghetti
- Snacks (Pita Chips)
- Snacks (Pretzel Chips)
Large Container (2.0 Liters)
- Almonds
- Oatmeal
- Pasta
- Brown Rice
- Sugar
- Protein Powder
- Candy
- Popcorn
- Snacks (Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels)
Medium container (1.4 liters)
- Shredded Coconut
- Marshmallows
- Brown Sugar
- Powdered Sugar
- Breadcrumbs
- Brown Rice Pasta
- Crackers
- Cookies (Oreos)
- Cookies (Nilla Wafers)
- Snack (Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers)
small container (0.8 liters)
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Corn Starch
- Nuts
- Soft Taco Shells
- Couscous
- Barley
Trays (for tea & snacks)
- Tea
- Hot Chocolate
- Apple Cider
- Fig Bars
- Granola Bars
- Protein Bars
- Goldfish bags
- Pretzel bags
- Skinny Pop bags
coffee pod tray
- Keurig Coffee Pods
All-Purpose Bins
- Baking Bin (Sprinkles, Food Coloring, Skewers, Candles)
- Baking Bin (Cake Mix, Muffin Mix, Honey, Peanut Butter, Frosting)
canned good bin
- Soup
- Beans
- Olives
- Tomato Paste
- Diced/Crushed Tomatoes
- Tomato Sauce
Conclusion
The end result is going to look amazing! You will not believe it is the same pantry as you had before. Being everything is labeled; everything will have a place. Unpacking your groceries takes a little bit longer to empty everything into their respective containers but give this task over to your kids to handle. Mine had a ball unloading it all. Also, most of the time you know what you buy, what is in your pantry and what your family enjoys. Of course, that can vary from time-to-time. My advice is to get some custom labels that just say snacks and it will cover the random items you buy without having to be so specific. I also have a few containers that weren’t filled so those will come in handy for any new items that go into the pantry.
Lastly, our pantry seemed super dark, so we purchased and installed lighting and switches for it. There are a lot of simple lighting options you can use though that stick on if you don’t want to wire any lighting, etc.
In conclusion, this project on how to organize a pantry took a little time, but I knew it would be everlasting and be worth it and it sure did not disappoint! My only regret is I wish I had done it sooner! So, what are you waiting for? Get started on that pantry! No better day than today. You won’t be disappointed! We can’t wait to see how your pantry organization goes and we hope you got some great advice on how to organize a pantry. Let us know in the comments below.
Interested in other posts on organizing and decluttering your home, certainly be sure to check out our post on Board Games Pouch Organization.
