contrary to popular belief it is VERY possible to keep an over-stocked pantry. the trick (for me at any rate) is restraint and not having more on hand than can get eaten within a couple of weeks time. we have containers for all the regulars with a few to spare for rotating in new ingredients. if i don't have a free container than i we eat through one before adding more new. there will be a stash of stuff without containers on occasion though. i keep a basket in there to help wrangle the little bits.

I built my pantry by reusing glass jars from olives, tomato sauce, nut butters, etc. so my rule is I can't add a new-to-me ingredient until we have finished an opened jar in the fridge (thus clearing out some fridge space) or emptied another pantry jar whose space we can use. Using the bulk bins when shopping has been enormously helpful, too, but mainly because I'm finally forcing myself to only buy what we will use in the next 2-3 months, and because I'm finally giving myself permission to not have everything ever on hand (for example, I used to have black, pinto, great Northern, cannelini, and garbanzo beans on hand, as well as red and green lentils and either green or yellow split peas. Now, my rule is to keep two bean varieties and one lentil OR split pea variety on hand at all times, and it's directed our meal planning better and kept the pantry organized.).

Haha. I'm terrible, I never think this far ahead. I often use it as an excuse to shuffle/reorganize (my poor family). Or I always find a spot to shove something in if I find something new to add to the pantry. And we tend to use up everything, so I guess that helps.

I feel this way about uniform spice jars. Some of the spices I use often and so I'd either need different sized jars, or I'd have to hide/get rid of the package containing the rest. Other spices I use so little of before they get stale. I suspect that these super organized pantries are tidied up before being posted online. I like to use a combination of mason jars and snap-tupperware type containers to keep reasonable order enforced.

For my pantry and my spice cabinet I use mason jars. They are one of the cheapest available container options at under a dollar a piece, you can buy more anywhere, and they come in tall and short, which is great for me as I can't stack 2 tall ones, but can use one big and one little. And then I use a white board marker and write what each one is, and when it gets low I move it into a smaller jar.
I have over 20 kinds of flour at home at all times among many other things, and I have a tiny apartment kitchen and my cabinets stay pretty organized like this.
For my spice rack I just put in a bunch of narrow shelves that accomodated 2 stacked 25omL mason jars and now have over 40 spices that look very cute and uniform.

Ugh - I hear you! My pantry looks pretty good about 75% of the time and people always comment on it. There very quickly, however, comes a time when it's overflowing and crammed with foodstuffs. My tricks then, are this:

1) I organize with bins, not jars. Each bin (ITSO from Target - I love them) is labeled sugars, snacks, pasta, or whatever. That way, the stuff in the bins can change however I want it to, but it still fits in the context of the pantry.

2) Some days, I just let it get messy. I can always find what I'm looking for and when things are crazy, I don't stress about it. The next weekend or when I get a spare minute, I'll rearrange things. It takes about 10 minutes, max.

3) Every now and then, I throw out what hasn't been eaten in a while. That way, everything that's in there is useful and a viable option for dinner.

4) I remember that life isn't a photo shoot, but life. If it works, it works!

@inkstainedwriter Great comment - It's great to have a system AND some days it's just not worth it to stress over being organized and let it wait for another time when you're feeling more up to it.

I have all my staples in mason jars, and a biiiig back up stash of mason jars. That said, after my spring clean this year I threw out SO MUCH stuff that I'd bought for one recipe and never used again. I decided that I'd only ever buy something if I have multiple uses for it. Which means that for the most part I just stick with my staples.

My pantry is SUPER organized 4 days out of the year. I arrange/sort/rotate and meticulously go through all my goods quarterly. Then I just go on with my life and stuff gets moved around, new groceries come in, the cat jumps up on the canned goods shelf and wreaks havoc .... I really don't sweat this. Don’t judge me.

I have a small pantry, so I use some space in the laundry room cabinets for extras that don't fit in the pantry. (For example, bags of flour and sugar because running out in the middle of baking something is the worst.)
I also try to just use bins - snack bin, bin for canned fruit, bin for canned beans, etc. It works but would probably work better if I wasn't too stubborn to go out and spend money on matching containers that fit my space - I just use random boxes and bins I had sitting around.
As far as knowing how many containers to buy, if you use something standard like mason jars then it's safe to assume you can go buy matching ones later if you need to expand.

Last summer I moved into a new rental that has a very generous pantry and loads of cabinet space. Yet somehow, I filled it up. Very, very quickly. :-) I'm now trying to teach myself that once I buy a new ingredient, that doesn't mean I always need to stock it. Easier said than done but I'm getting there.

I don't understand matching containers. Nothing ever comes in matching volumes anyways, and no way am I decanting things in perfectly acceptable containers of their own.

I use a lot of repurposed jars from olives and whatnot, and canning jars, to store dry goods that come in bulk or bags. I keep empty containers in my pantry to tricks my brain into thinking the pantry is full. Stocking up happens based on sales and access to certain stores, so sometimes there are more empties than others. NBD. It just all has to fit in one cabinet.

Organization porn is ruining the homekeeping internet IMO. I like a tidy home as much as the next person, but nothing will ever be that pristine in my life, I don't have time for that. Enough with the painted-on chalkboard labels on everything.

/endrant

I took advantage of a move to organize the pantry - I actually sat down one day sometime before we moved and made a list of dry goods I wanted to store, and then went out and bought enough ball jars to store all of them. I felt like sort of a crazy person when I did it, but now I REALLY appreciate the organization. My current kitchen is a thousand times more functional than my last kitchen!

A large portion of my pantry lives in the refrigerator - nuts, wheat bran & germ, seeds, dried fruits, oils - I had a jar of hazelnuts go moldy after a particularly warm San Francisco summer week, so never again. Those babies are expensive.

It freed up a lot of space for large containers of sugars, flours, and my most desired starchy food stuffs like rice and farro.

I don't know if they are available in the U.S. but I use 750ml tomato sauce jars - they are tall and skinny and perfectly fit 500g, or 1lb or dried beans, grains, flour, ect. They take up the whole height of my pantry drawer and I can fit tons of them. Since the top is tapered I can easily see from the top what's what. In the case where there are water ratios that were written on the package. I write that on the outside of the jar with a dry-erase marker.

As I use-up a jar I run it through the dishwasher and add the ingredient to my shopping list.

One of the first commenters mentioned something really smart. No need to stock more than what you can consume in a given amount of time. Most dried pantry foods can last about a year, rarely more. So you need to commit yourself to going through everything about once a year. The fall/winter is the best time to do this. Few fresh local veggies are available and it's time to make lots of grain/legume soups, pastas and dishes.

For ingredients I use more often polenta flour and sugar, I have large jars with a flip-top lid. I use flour in large quantities at a time, so it doesn't make sense for me to fill up a jar with a bag once a week. I just keep that in it's shop bag.

So I think there are three ingredients, of sorts, to keep your pantry neat. The first is only stock what you can realistically use in a year. The second, is use storage containers that can easily fit in the shelving/drawer system available, and the last is adjust container size to the use frequency.

Once I figured all of this out for myself. I was able to keep a very nicely stocked pantry!

Ciao,

L

I'm lucky enough to have just had a new kitchen installed and am in the process of re-stocking my huge new pantry. The one thing I learned over time is to buy containers that hold a WHOLE packet of the ingredient you buy, e.g. flour, sugar etc. So many times I have bought a packet of flour only to find that the container holds about 3/4 of it and I then have to store the remainder in the original bag. And make sure that the container has a wide enough neck so you can spoon out the contents easily. Some storage containers look great but are a real hassle trying to get a scoop into.

In my country (NZ) our spices usually come in small cardboard packets. I usually leave them in these and pop them in a snaplock plastic container. You can see the label through the plastic, they stack neatly and stay fresher longer.

Where are these cute storage jars/containers from? I LOVE THEM!!

Cabinets' storage organizers allow to store plenty of different kitchen items:
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