Organizing Food Storage Containers

In these days of financial uncertainty, it seems like it is becoming more and more expected to resurrect that old standby, "Leftover Night." Well, in order to successfully preserve your food till leftover night, you will need to use food storage containers. Unfortunately, food storage containers seem to have a way of multiplying and taking over the kitchen; that's where organizing comes in. Organizing food storage containers is a remarkably easy thing to do, if you simply keep a few things in mind.

• Empty containers. By far, the biggest problem with organizing food storage containers is what to do with them when they are empty. Well, the easiest way to store them is to combine a little imagination with some of your bakeware and other kitchen items in a rather unusual manner. Use a cake pan, pie tin, or other large and relatively thin item to store the lids for your empty containers. When storing the containers themselves, why not stack them one inside the other? After all, like brands are almost guaranteed to fit inside each other, and often similar styles will do the same thing.
• Bakeware. Probably one of the most commonly used food storage items is what you have cooked the food in, and this means bakeware. If you have enough of the food left over, it only makes sense to store it in the same dish used to prepare it. Well, storing bakeware can be a little daunting to the uninformed. As stated earlier, one of the best ways to make use of bakeware is by giving it a double duty, such as using it to store other items. For those items that will not be given a double duty, try sorting and stacking the items according to size and possibly brand. You can do this in a similar manner to what you do with the empty plastic containers.
• Boxes. Often boxes can be a great way to store food, particularly if it hasn't been cooked yet. The easiest way to store any boxed food is to sort it according to size, type, and method of preparation. This way you will be able to find exactly what you are looking for at a moment's notice.
• Wraps. One of the more frustrating types of food storage items is those plastic wraps. It is quite common for the tubes to fall out of the boxes at some point. Usually this happens when you are trying to pull some of the wrap off or when you are trying to put it away. The way that you prevent this from happening though is fairly easy. On the ends of the box, you should find some tabs. Push those tabs in, and you will find that they act as a lock to keep the tube in place.