by Pam Johnson

Created on: May 14, 2009

An organized pantry is the heart and soul of an organized kitchen. Key to keeping this area of the kitchen is constantly going through and checking your supplies.

First thing you are going to want to do in organizing this vital area of your kitchen, be in a select group of cupboards or a little closet built in to the house design is the clear it out and start with a clean and fresh canvas. So roll up your sleeves and dive in.

Pull out all your canned goods and other foodstuffs. While you are doing this, check the due by dates. Past the due-by, then toss it out. When in doubt, toss it out. You're dealing with food. Don't take chances.

While you're pulling everything out, you can get the organization process started by grouping like foods. By the end of the emptying process, you should have an idea of what you have with canned vegetables, canned fruits, condiments, baking goods, snacks, whatever all grouped in their own section.

Before you get busy putting things back, take a minute to clean and sterilize the pantry shelves. If you use shelf liners, check them to make sure they are still well set in place. Replace loose and peeling liners taking care to clean the shelves well before the new liners go in.

Next, take a look at what you have waiting to go back into the pantry. There are a lot of different organizers you can use to clearly mark your "place for everything and everything in its place" arrangements. If you have ample space this might be the way to go, it would make it easy to know at a glance what you're getting low on, but if you're working with limited space you might want to pare down the dividers and organizers and just group things together.

Before restocking your pantry, check the cans and packages for damage. Wipe down the cans and glass packaging of dust and other nastiness. Throw out any damaged packages. Dented cans can be a danger, letting bacteria thrive. Get rid of them.

Restock your foodstuff with an eye toward same with same. Break down your foodstuffs by type. Beans, peas, corn, and stack them out in a line so the first can shows exactly what is in that line. You can save trips to the store by figuring out approximately how many of each item you will need in a week and restock them each week.

Pastas and rice and other foodstuffs that come in plastic type wrappers can be organized in attractive baskets on the shelf. Repackage opened packages in canisters to keep them fresh and safe.

Baking goods and condiments, things that aren't used on a daily basis can go on the higher shelves. Same with boxed dinners snacks, keeping them in like groupings. Again, always repackage an opened package unless its got a sealing lid to keep it fresh and germs out.

Keeping you pantry organized only takes a few minutes, but it does require consistency. This is an area that is constantly being used and things will get moved, but by keeping a vigilant eye, you should be able to know at a glance what needs to be replaced, oh and when replacing new foodstuffs, be such to rotate the older forward. That way you're always using the older things first and not having to toss the expired foods quite so frequently

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