Organize your Kitchen for Easy Meal Planning - Food Storage Edition

Does this sound familiar?  You decide you’re going to make spaghetti for dinner, so you head to the store to pick up spaghetti sauce.  When you go to the pantry for the pasta, you find an unopened jar of the same sauce hidden behind a box of cereal.  Turns out you could have saved a trip to the grocery store after all.  

Duplicate purchases, forgotten-turned-rotten foods and unnecessary shopping trips can be avoided by simply creating an efficient storage system within your fridge, freezer and pantry.  Consider these tips for making the most of your food storage spaces:

• Make the shelves easily scannable: Utilize tools like shelf extenders to avoid food being lost behind others.  You want the inventory step to be a quick one in your meal planning system.
• Store like with like:  When you organize your pantry, fridge and freezer in zones, you can focus on just the sections that affect your weekly meal plan.  Not baking this week?  No need to scan the baking zone.
• Label and date any repackaged foods: Whether it’s your leftover casserole from last night or the bulk cereal in a plastic container, take out the guesswork.  When the containers are labeled, there are fewer surprises.

Are your food storage spaces set up for easy scanning?  Do you know what’s lurking in the back corners?