Pantry items are the building blocks of every dish. They are low-maintenance ingredients that do not need to be refrigerated, which makes them perfect for bulk buying, and always having them in your pantry.

There are a few things to be considered when storing pantry items. Keeping them tidy and organized can help save time and save as well as avoid spoilage in the future.

So in this post, I’m sharing practical and creative tips on how to properly store pantry items and keep them organized whether in designated pantry rooms or shelves.

Pantry organizing can definitely be fun, so here are pantry organizing ideas and tips.

How To Store Pantry Items

Flour

All flour should be kept in air-tight containers. If you keep your white flour (all-purpose, cake flour, etc.) that way, it should be good for about a year (but it all depends on the flour you’re buying, make sure you check the label).

Whole grain flour can go bad quicker, so you can keep it in the freezer.

Sugar

Sugar should be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. You can get glass jars with an airtight lid and keep your sugar in that. Normally, sugar will be good for 1-2 years.

Pasta

Pasta can be kept in the original boxes it came in, or you can put it in a glass jar if you want your pantry to look nice and if you want to organize your shelf space. You should keep it in a cool and moisture-free place, so your pantry will do. Don’t keep it in the fright or the freezer. Pasta will be good for 1-2 years.

Grains

Most grains should be good for years when you keep them in air-tight containers in your pantry.

Best Pantry Organizing Tips

Use clear jars or containers

Using clear or glass jars and containers can help you see the items in your pantry right away. It can look esthetically nice, and also serve the purpose of easy recognition.

Just make sure the lid on those clear or glass jars is air-tight, since you don’t want your food to spoil.

Label items

Labeling items is especially useful for any organization. It looks nice, but it has a good purpose besides the aesthetics.

First of all, the most obvious benefit is that you’ll know what everything is right away (while it’s easy to notice if something is pasta or flour, you might not be able to figure out whether something is white flour or a cake mix without having a label on it (if it’s not in the original packaging).

So, make sure you label your items.

However, there’s another way to use labels and it’s one of the best pantry organizing tips that not many people practice. 

If you’re taking something out of its original packaging and putting it in a clear or glass jar or container, or any other type of container), write the expiration date on the label. Many people write just the name of the item. But, writing the expiration date will help you be sure the item is still good to use, and you won’t have to reply on your memory for all of your pantry items.

Create zones

Creating zones with pantry staples can really help better organize your pantry space and make things easily accessible.

Put your dried goods in one zone, your pasta in another zone, grains in one zone, sauces and condiments in one zone, snacks in one zone, etc.

Having pantry items organized in zones will make it easy to know where something is, so you won’t have to try and remember where something is.

Store items together

Store similar items together. You can get bins and boxes and store similar pantry items together for easy access and better pantry organization. Food storage should make your life easier, so by storing things together, you’ll always know where something is, you’ll be able to find it easier, and it will make much more sense.

Utilize doors and vertical spaces

In your pantry, you’re probably gonna have vertical spaces such as shelf space, but you might also have doors (both the main pantry door, and cabinet doors). So, utilize all of that space.

For vertical spaces and shelf spaces, you can obviously put all of your bins, jars, and containers on that. However, you can also put some pull out drawers on the shelves (there are drawers you attach to the shelf, so you can pull it out). That way, you’re basically doubling your storage space, because you’ll have the actual shelf, and also the pull out part.

For the doors, you can put the handing helfs on them. For the big pantry door, you can put on some hanging storage solutions. For the cabinet doors, you can add small attachments, such as holders for spice jars that you attach to the inner side of a cabinet door. That way, you’re getting more storage space, getting easy access to everything, and having better pantry organizing solutions.

Create kid-friendly spots

If you have kids, especially smaller kids, you probably don’t want them climbing up in the pantry trying to find candy and snacks.

So, if you let your kids go to the pantry to get something for themselves, create kid-friendly spots by getting bins or containers, and putting all of their snacks in it. Then, put that bin or container on a lower shelf somewhere, somewhere where they can easily access it, without knocking something over on themselves. That way, they can easily get what they need, you won’t have to worry that they’ll try to climb to get something from a higher shelf, and your pantry will still be well organized.

Get different storage solutions

If you want storage ideas, you should look into different storage solutions. Having different storage solutions for different types of products can make everything well organized.

Look into glass jars, clear containers, bins, spice jars, different jars for dry ingredients, lazy susans, etc. Having different storage solutions for different types of products will make everything much easier, especially home cooking when you need to get different things for every meal.

Get lazy susans

Lazy susans are amazing products that should be in every pantry. They make everything easily accessible. Since they turn around, you can store bottles of sauces, jars, different small containers on them, and when you need to find something, you don’t have to move things that are in the front row to get to the back, you can simply turn the lazy susan around and find what you need.

It’s one of the best things for easy access you can get to organize your pantry space.

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