Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back if you’ve taken on the difficult chore of cleaning out your refrigerator. You’ve done it! But wait, you’re not finished yet! It’s time to put everything back together once all expired condiments have been dumped and the shelves have been scrubbed clean. And it makes a difference how you go about it and where you place things. Don’t give up! We’ll show you how to go about it. Just keep reading for all of our suggestions, tips, and tactics.

How Do Professional Kitchens Keep Their Fridges Organized?

We prefer to use professional and restaurant kitchens as examples for arranging the refrigerator since they arrange their fridges with food safety in mind. Their method is to place depending on the temperature at which the meals must be prepared. Things that don’t need to be cooked to be safe to consume (such prepared meals or leftovers) go on top, then everything else is ordered downwards by temperature, with the things that need to be cooked to the maximum temperature (like chicken) at the bottom. Cross-contamination will not be an issue if the food is arranged this way since the contaminated food must be cooked to a higher temperature than the food sitting above it that may have dropped down.

How to Organize Your Fridge on Your Own

So, how can we adapt their organizational style? Here’s an approach that follows the same ideas but is suited to the specifics of a home refrigerator.

Leftovers, beverages, and ready-to-eat meals are stored on the upper shelf (like yogurt, cheese, and deli meats).
Raw components for prepared recipes are kept on the lower shelf.
Refrigerator door: Because the refrigerator door is the hottest area of the fridge, only condiments should be stored there. Do not put eggs or milk in the door; they should be kept in the refrigerator’s coldest section.
Drawers: These might be difficult to work with. It makes sense to store fruits and vegetables in them since they’re intended to keep produce at precise humidity levels. However, since they’re generally at the bottom of the fridge, putting meat on the shelf above might contaminate our fresh veggies.

What are some possible solutions?

If you have two drawers, dedicate one to vegetables and the other to raw meat; if one drawer is higher than the other, use the lower drawer for beef. If they’re next to one other, whichever drawer will suffice. Clean the meat drawer regularly. Do you need both fruit and vegetable drawers? If it’s impossible to avoid storing raw meat above other foods, make your meat drawer with a transparent plastic bucket that will collect any spills and keep the beef securely apart from the rest of the food.
See, not as difficult as you thought.