Last time I cleaned out my pantry, I spent a while cleaning up oil rings and sticky honey drips.

So I used lids from our collection of large, flat, disposable tupperware-type containers as trays, and put the oils and honey on them. They're easy to clean, sit flat, come in many sizes, and the little lip keeps all the gunk contained.

(I use the (lid-less) containers to organize small stuff in the fridge and freezer.)

We had to construct metal put-it-together type cubbies as a stand-in for a pantry because our kitchen is screwy. It's the worst thing ever to try to clean.

start with buying minimal

I would say to make a commitment to cook with the items in your pantry so that they are rotated accordingly. A pantry should not be filled with things "you might need" it should be filled with things "you always need" and you should cycle through those things pretty regularly. If you haven't touched it in a year, you don't need it -- and it's probably gone bad -- so you don't want it, either!

I agree with Laura. When I plan the week's meals I always first make a list of everything in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. Then sit down with a cup of tea and some books (or blogs) and see what I can make with it.

I bought a remnant of linoleum, and cut shelf liners for my pantry. They are sturdy, washable, and my pantry shelves look brand new.

I agree with susrith in theory - buy minimally - but it doesn't work in practice for me! My cupboard is jammed at the moment. The meal list suggestion is excellent, I always come home fried and not wanting to think of what to cook, so I forget what I have at hand. Hopefully this will inspire me to organize my kitchen! Thanks!

Onde or twice a year (when you're not under pressure at work/in life) commit to using up everything in your pantry and refridgerator over a couple of weeks... I'm in the middle of doing this at the moment and I'm knocking about 30% off my weekly grocery bills.

I've started storing things in plastic boxes by theme, like a tea box or a baking box. That way I just haul out the box when needed, and it's easier to clean the box than the shelf.

I hoard food and tea when I'm stressed out, so I put moratoriums on buying things that I have too much of from time to time. Right now, I need to go through a surfeit of beans before I can buy more. I move the thing I'm trying to get through to the bottom front of my pantry where it's most accessible/ at the forefront of my mind. And I hide the chocolate.

Living in a rural community, buying minimally is a waste of both time & gas. I straighten the pantry while making a shopping list every 2 wks & do a deep clean twice a year. Anything approaching it's expiration date gets culled & incorporated into either dinner that week or a freezer recipe...a life-saver on a hectic weekday & no waste.

This has motivated to clean out my pantry this weekend.

I don't have an actual pantry just upper kitchen cabinets. Things are grouped by type in plastic bins so if I'm baking I can grab the one that has the baking powder, vanilla etc as a single item instead of all those little containers. The ones on the top shelf have a pull-string attached so I can grab them without using a stepstool and hold lighter items. They can be put back without using a stepstool if I stand on my tippytoes. There are smaller containers on the bottom shelf that leave space for individual items I used daily. Drawers would be great for the lower cabinets, but in the meantime I have bins there too. Flour, sugar and other bulk dry goods are stored in glass gallon jars.

I have one above-counter corner cabinet that I can use to store items. It's thankfully not a major issue, since I live in the city and a grocer is only 3 blocks away. I do keep a Lazy Susan on the bottom shelf for some items and I do stack similar items on top of each other, like cans of beans or diced tomatoes.

"Buy minimal" is a nice concept for some kinds of food (do you really need more than four cans of soup in a pantry?) but not for others. You can't buy a minimal amount of molasses, for example, which means you either store the 3/4-full jar for months, or you commit to a spate of molassesy recipes all in a row because God forbid you should have what we used to call a well-stocked pantry. Same with five-spice powder, cream of tartar, corn starch: When you need it, you need it, but few people are going to quickly run through an entire container, so you're just going to have to have seldom-used items on hand.

The place to buy minimally is with stuff like Jell-O and soup and Hamburger Helper and other mixes and processed foods (if you buy them at all). My mom kept a rainbow of Jell-O flavors on hand, as if she would wake up someday and say "Shoot -- I have cherry, lemon, lime, and grape, but today only orange will do." Have a couple of cans of soup there in case you don't feel like cooking one night, but don't feel like you must replicate the supermarket's full soup menu.

A well-stocked, organized pantry is a beautiful thing. I know that if we get snowed in or just have a case of the lazies, we can always create a great meal from the supplies we have on hand. It also keeps us from reaching for the nearest pizza delivery menu. For someone like me who cooks from scratch nearly every day, having those odd, rarely used supplies on hand is just a necessity.