What's in your freezer? Wait — you don't know? Is there a package of pie crust hidden underneath the bags of frozen dumplings? Or a mystery jar of meat sauce lurking in a back corner? If your freezer resembles a dark and mysterious junk shop, then take inspiration from these five enviably well-organized freezers. Clean, labeled, and dang-well organized!
5 Well-Organized Freezers
• 1 Freezer Smarts - at BHG. Isn't this inspiring? Tiny containers of pesto, stock, and lemon juice. Separate bins for veggies and fish, and a stack of perfectly flattened bags of soup.
• 2 Organizers in the Freezer - at IHeart Organizing. I like how Jen uses easily-found, inexpensive office organizers to keep the freezer tidy. Easy to pull out and find what you need, and easy to clean, too!
• 3 Side-by-Side Freezer - at Organizing to Make Life Easier. Here's a very nicely organized side-by-side freezer, with its skinny width and tall height. I find these harder to keep organized, but this is a great example.
• 4 Freezer Cooking Tips & Tricks - at Thrifty NW Mom. Here's a good example of organizing freezer drawers, top and bottom.
• 5 Freezer Meals - at Southern Living. Once again, freezing things flat makes "filing" in the freezer a lot easier. I like the labels on these little packets.
How do you keep your freezer organized? Does your freezer actually look like any of these?
Related: Freezer Organization: Toss an Ice Tray or Two
(Images: Better Homes & Gardens; Jen of IHeart Organizing; Jade of Organizing to Make Life Easier; Kristi for Thrifty NW Mom; Ralph Anderson/Southern Living)
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Holy crap. I'd kill for my freezer to be so organized!!
Right now our chest freezer is fairly organized but our inside one is overtaken by a million ziplocs of frozen homemade baby food!
In my old top-mount freezer, I had great cardboard boxes for categories like "meats", "veggies", "fruit," etc. Now I have a bottom-mount freezer with two drawers, and I'm still trying to find the best system. I see one example in the photos that relies on [an insane] uniformity of containers; does anyone out there have other ideas?
Wow... my freezer looks nothing like this. I am envious.
Petworthy- that's why I had to get a small chest freezer. No matter how I tried, my bottom freezer just never seemed to load very well. I found I had an easier time organizing meats on the top shelf and veggies/fruits, etc in the bigger "bins" on the bottom. To me, putting containers in the freezer would take up even more space you're pressed for as it is.
Oh I wish, I wish, I wish...
My freezer is somewhat organized. I make up pizza kits, that have dough, sauce, cooked mini sausage balls and pepperoni in them. The dough thaws relatively fast if you nuke it on defrost for a minute or two. Same thing with the sauce. I usually degrease the pepperoni before it goes on the pizza. The only other thing to do is the veggies, and grating up the cheese, which I do for each pizza. I'm not a cheese freezer. :) I also do single servings of things like chicken and dumplings, chili. I also freeze up homemade pasta sauce.
@EMW1 - your pizza kits are a fantastic idea. Do you have to do anything differently with the dough after you nuke it, or do you treat it just like fresh dough?
I freeze most everything in glass canning jars- all sizes. Use the cardboard flat they come in to keep them contained in the freezer. I use a dry erase marker on the lids, washes off easily. Just be careful if you are defrosting in microvawe to do on low power for a few minutes so you do not crack the glas jars.
My freezer is equally organized, but it doesn't look this nice because I've never once thought of using containers to hold all of the bags/jars of STUFF in there. What a great idea!
apk_101 I treat it just like fresh dough, sometimes there's a little bit of frozen at the center, and I just worked it with my hands for a moment or two. Flour the counter and roll it out. I use Bobby Flay's recipe for dough at food network. I usually get 3 pizzas out of the batch.
@EMW1 - thanks so much! I'll try it straightaway.
This post makes me hate myself. The picture with SpongeBob really did me in; you know that person has kids which makes it all the more impressive that the freezer is (1) well organized and (2) stocked with very few store-bought items.
*sigh*
Wow. That's fantastic. It makes our (slow) re-organisation seem pitiful in comparison. haha.
APK_101
Here's the recipe I use for sauce. I usually put 1/2 cup on per pizza. This recipe makes quite a bit!
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Homemade-Pizza-Sauce
Well, I thought MY freezer was organized! This is a Type A's dream freezer! Lol!
Way to make me feel inferior, people.
I thought I was doing well, just writing down what it is and when I put it in there.
Wow! What an amazing idea! Simple and effective. I'm in.
We have a small deep freeze, and thus don't have the luxury of opening the door (as in a standup freezer) to view an array of frozen goods lined up in front of our eyes. We use a whiteboard (that lives on TOP of the freezer) to keep track of what's in there. Within the freezer is a reuseable cloth shopping bag with all of the meat, and one with vegetables. Prepared meals in their respective tupperware containers go to one side, and a storage tote on the other side holds many 1.5 cup portions of homemade stock. The basket on top contains a variety of gluten free flours for easy access!
I think the key is finding a system that works for you. When we get lazy and start forgetting to cross off the contents of the freezer from the whiteboard, the whole system is useless and gets lumped into the same jumbled freezer mess that I think most people battle with.
The inside of my freezer looks insane, but on the lid of the chest and the door of the upright I have lists of the contents...taped over the approximate location of the food items. It takes me about 5 seconds to locate most items.
Now, if only the person I did this for could follow the system!!!
Can't help but wonder how long the printed labels will last in some of those photos. I've tried different kinds and applying at different stages of the freezing process but they usually end up falling off. The only thing that works for me is freezer ziplock bags (with their own label section) and a sharpie marker.
However, I freeze pre-made (aka leftovers) dinners and lunches in el cheapo microwave containers. When the contents are cool (after the original cook) I stick on a piece of invisible tape (aka magic tape) and write the contents and date with a skinny marker. It tends to stay on until I peel it off to wash the container.
Wow! Many of the things in my freezer aren't even labeled!
I am curious about the cylindrical containers (pic #5) marked Lasagna.
10 weeks until I retire, and THEN (maybe...!) I'll have a freezer that looks like that! God knows I'd love to have things sorted by date. I find that even more important that what's in the package.
My freezer isn't one of your new-fangled self-defrosting ones, oh no. None of your technology for ME (well, for my landlord, anyway). My freezer is probably two parts ice build-up to three parts frozen unidentifiables. It's super great.
Mine is full of my 8 year old's culinary experiments... she likes to mash and freeze things... so I have a couple of plastic bottle bottoms with chocolate cheerios in some mysterious liquid, a bowl of frozen chocolate and something, frozen brown bananas for banana bread and a lot of Montreal bagels...
*sigh*... this makes me feel so inadequate. I never even managed imagined the inside of a freezer could look this good...
@EMW1 - Glad I checked this thread again. Thanks for that recipe!
These are indeed enviable. My freezer currently has multiple-personality disorder. All the forzen breast-milk is HYPER organized and everything else is just chucked in willie-nillie.
Love the pizza kit idea!
I like how everything looks stacked like books on a shelf, but I'd like other ideas that won't involve using so many plastic bags. I've become environmentally conscious!
But it looks nice.
Try to being organized like this 5 Well-Organized Freezers
http://healthylunchideas.us/tips-to-organize-your-freezer