With spring in the air and the Marie Kondo craze as of late, we’ve all got spring cleaning and organization on the brain. (Or is it just Asra and I?) In today’s post Asra will share some tricks and ideas how to keep your pantry neat and organized. Take it away, Asra! ~L.S.

I try to keep my home organized all the time (even with my three hyperactive boys), but the pantry has always been a challenge. Before I tackled this project last week, it was always disorganized with too many packets of the same spice , mismatched containers of all sizes, just lending to the messy and cluttered look

When we moved to our new house and I saw the walk-in pantry with nice shelves, I just couldn’t sleep for days, thinking about how could I organize it to be a place where I wouldn’t spend hours looking for a bottle of spice. Yes, I am serious! Every night I would be up late pinning ideas for an organized pantry and I would wander the aisles of stores daily to find ideas. I finally sat down and made a sketch of what I wanted - an organized space that would store all my food and make me feel happy to look at.

So, I decided to just finally do it last week! Here are some tips to help you tackle yours!

SORT (and Discard)

First things first, take out everything out from your pantry and see what you haven’t used for awhile. Sort out everything - the spices, grains, all the boxed products. Please let go of the stuff which you haven’t used in forever. If you haven’t used it in two months you will probably not use it in the next two months either. Just keep the things you use regularly.

CATEGORIZE

Once you’ve sorted, you can then see how many of the containers or jars you will need. Divide everything into categories and buy similar jars for each category. For example: sugar, flour, chickpea flour will go into the big containers as they come in big packets. You can get small size containers for all your lentils and grains. I used these round containers by Oxo which can be found at Target, Amazon, and I’m sure many other stores.

CONTAIN & LABEL

Keep it simple. The less containers you will have, the less food you will buy to store. Put each item in your pantry into separate bottles so when you go next time for grocery shopping you won’t end up buying same thing twice. (You won’t believe it but there was a time I had four brand new packets of dry coriander in my pantry and everytime I would go grocery shopping I used to buy one thinking I was out of it! And I don’t even use it much in my cooking)  So put each and every spice into separate bottles and buy a basket to store all the leftovers. Don’t double anything. The key is that you should be able to see whatever is stored in your pantry. And label everything. That makes it convenient and fancy. ;) I used these chalkboard labels .

STORE & STYLE!

Store all the small appliances you use daily (like your blender, can-opener, etc.) on one side of the shelf. You can add some color by stacking your dishes, or with fun pantry quotes. But make sure everything is going with the flow. Use a lidded basket to store the things which are not used in day to day cooking or are hard to store outside in a neat way.

ENJOY!
We may not always enjoy the finest of dining around here, but this pantry serves us well and works great for our family. And when you can have this organized space who cares what you’re eating. #Priorities. ;)