The $10 Dollar Store Hack That’ll Organize All Your Food Container Lids

I consider myself a fairly organized person. And when I say “fairly organized,” what I really mean is that Marie Kondo is my soul mate. I believe that there’s a place for everything and that when everything is in its rightful place, all is (relatively) right with the world. That doesn’t mean that sometimes my kitchen isn’t a mess or that there aren’t some things that are a complete pain to organize. 

Some of my least favorite things to wrangle are food containers and their lids. Really any kind of lid is a storage conundrum. Personally, I’ve minimized the madness by limiting the types of food containers in my kitchen. At one point, I only had quart containers, which could be stacked neatly (with their lids corralled in a bin). 

I still think these restaurant storage containers are pretty awesome, but they’re not for everyone and even I have expanded my collection to include a few glass containers and two sets of these gorgeous Rosti Mepal nesting bowls. That means I now have several shapes and sizes of lids that all need to be organized, in a way that they’re easily accessible but also tidy and orderly and out of the way.

So what’s a neat-freak to do? The solution actually comes from the Dollar Store. And it involves nothing more than a cooling rack and a plastic bin.

The proper sizing will depend on how many lids you’re dealing with, but the total cost shouldn’t be more than $10 (but ideally you can make it work for just $2!) and it’s super simple to assemble. Just fit the cooling rack into (or on top of) the bin, and then slot your lids into place. Behold! A homemade hack for storing those annoying lids.

The best part is that this setup makes it easy to slide everything into a lower cabinet or drawer so that it’s out of sight — and just as easy to slide out when you need a lid. 

How do you store all the lids to your food containers?