Freezer Organization
Last week I mention in my Menu Monday post about organizing my chest freezer. Chest freezers are a challenge to organize. Things get lost in the bottom and items pile up on top. I know I've tried several methods over the years. I received a comment asking me to share with pictures of my organization job.
I think the key to any method is consistency. As and example... after grocery shopping last week my son was helping me put the groceries away. He took the freezer items and put them in the freezer. Well.. he basically just dumped them in the freezer. So much of my organization plan was gone. When I realized what had happened (when I went to the freezer to retrieve something :) I spent a few minutes putting things back where they belong.
I've not always been great at the consistency part. So an annual freezer cleaning is needed. Now that I have only one freezer my determination to keep it organized and usable is very high.
I did not purchase anything to organize. I used some sturdy cardboard boxes. This may not look all that fancy, but it does do the job and it was free!
Here is what I did....
On the very bottom of the freezer I put 2 large sturdy boxes. The box on the right has meat in it. The box on the left has frozen potatoes, veggies and cheese.
There is a little shelf to the left (the compressor and motor is under this which creates a shelf). On this I have a bag of oat groats, a bag of oats, some chicken broth and an open bag of yeast.
On the top of the bottom boxes I put a 3rd box. This box has bread products in it. I did it this way so the box would be light to lift out in order to get to the items below it. Nothing like having to dig through a bunch of heavy frozen items to reach something at the bottom. My goal was to make everything as accessible as possible in order to help me stay consistent with keeping it all organized..
When I purchased the freezer it had 2 hanging baskets. The one on the right I have juice and ice cream in it...
The one on the left my son has some of his own food items in it. This works well because he knows where to put his items and where to find them when he wants them..
Also sitting on top of the meat I put a couple bags of ice I purchased. I did not get a picture of that. The ice gets used fairly quickly and open bags are put in the freezer of our refrigerator.
Do you have any chest freezer organization methods that work well for you?
We have a small chest freezer too. Ours is similar to yours with the little basket and the shelve. Ours doesn't have that much food in it. We had a power outage about a month ago and during that time of waiting for it to get fixed (it was throughout my area), our meat storage was ruined. I didn't discover it until a couple days. The smell from the fish/shrimp was too scary. I assumed everything when bad, and just tossed it all. Now, I'm in the process of rebuilding the meats back up during sales/etc.
ReplyDeleteSo far, we really only store meats in it and if I make freezer meals in the disposable aluminum pans. We stack the freezer meals along one side in the bottom.
Then, we organize our meats by type throughout. We tend to store ground beef stacked on the shelf, on the other side of the shelf we stack our specialty sausage-foods from the local meat store. Bottom has ribs, chickens, and porkchops. In the basket we keep shrimp, fish, excess bacon and, misc.
The rest of our food is stored in our freezer which is in our side-by-side style refrigerator (veggies, meats to be used soon, frozen meals in zipper-top bags, cheeses, and the few potato-type foods. All that stuff goes on the shelves. On the door, I keep the juice concentrates.
Funny but I enjoy seeing how others do up their freezer. I had a 9 cubic foot chest freezer for 31 years which had to be organized to stay sane with all the kids digging in it for treats. Last year I inherited my parents upright full freezer. Freezer love! I have plastic containers in there which I pull out like drawers. One for chicken, one beef, one pork, huge one for vegetable and large fruit one ( farm crops). Baking and breads on one shelf and butters and cheese in the door. I air lock bag as much as possible to save space. However uprights need defrosting more often.
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