Hi I'm Ali welcome back to Haven's Kitchen
today we're going to talk a little bit about refrigerator organization
I've been teaching cooking for about 25 years and one of the things that comes up
over and over again is "I don't know how to stock my fridge I don't know what goes
in the fridge I don't know how to keep my fridge organized" we've come to the
conclusion that if you've got a clean fridge you've got a clear mind and you can't lose
so part of building your confidence as a home cook and feeling like you got this is having certain
things always kind of available for you some in your pantry some in your fridge but also just not
having the chaos of like rifling through and not knowing what's still good and not knowing what's
gone bad and also not having any of the guilt of having to throw things out because they're
past their due date or you just haven't used them in time if this sounds like something that
would be helpful for you and you're interested in feeling more confident in the kitchen be sure to
subscribe to see this and all of our future tips and tricks videos alright let's head to the fridge
so let's talk first about what to keep in the fridge versus what to keep out of the fridge
right there are things like onions and garlic basics that you're probably going to be using a
lot in your cooking those stay out of the fridge but then you have other things that are kind of
what you use all the time citrus lemons and limes a nice hunk of cheese mustard any condiment that
you've opened if you've opened it it goes in the fridge and one thing that I like to tell our
students a lot that they don't necessarily know is things like walnuts and almonds
grains that have holes around them like a farro or a brown rice once that bag is open it's good to
keep it in the fridge it'll just keep it fresher for longer and that's great things like flour you
can keep in the freezer but you can also keep them in the fridge when it comes to the organization of
your fridge we like to talk a lot about FIFO that's "first in first out" so you don't want
to have a milk that's going to expire sooner in the back behind the new milk that you buy
people find that happens a lot so just make sure when you bring home new groceries that you have
the things that are expiring first in front and put the new stuff in back so it's going in first
it's coming out first when it comes to things like greens and herbs leafy lettuces things like that
what we've done and we've talked about this in our herbs video is you kind of bring them home you
take them out you wrap them in a damp paper towel and you just store them in the produce drawer it's
nice because everything's ready for you to go and it also keeps them for longer so they don't go bad
our fridge might not look exactly like your fridge and that's totally fine you know what you like and
you know what you use the most often so the only key here really is just keeping things
organized so you know what you have so in our case we know that we use a lot of butter and we
know that we use a lot of cheese we have it all here we have it labeled we have it organized so
we know what we have and we know when we make a shopping list what we need to buy
if you were going to be storing like raw chicken or raw meat because you were getting ready to make
it that night we always suggest putting that on the bottom shelf just in case any of the juices
find their way out you don't want them up here kind of going down the rest of the fridge you
want to keep them low so if anything happens it's an easy cleanup it's a good idea to have really
good storage and organization in your fridge again it's all about knowing what you have
in there and not kind of finding something that expired six months ago in the back corner
so we keep a lot of our condiments and things on sort of a lazy Susan in the middle of the fridge
we also have nice bins that we've bought that keep our sauces and our citrus
and everything sort of organized we have eggs up here and you know apples you don't need to keep
in the fridge but everyone on our team likes them cold so we keep them up there for some
of our herbs that we know that we're going to be using pretty shortly we keep them in a glass just
like this standing up in the fridge with some water kind of like they're growing still in the
water in the cup we know that we're going to be using these in a day or two and we want to make
sure that we use those first so we keep them there one thing you want to keep in mind about the door
is that it does tend to get a little warmer than deeper into the fridge so just have that in
mind if there's anything that you really want to make sure is cold you wouldn't put raw meat here
up here we have all of our nuts and seeds in glass jars it's a great way to store them we take them
out of the bag we put them in a jar kind of saves us on you know cleanup I also have five kids and
they have this incredible way of leaving like a bag of something wherever they go so they've
eaten all the chips but there are like two left in the bag I take everything out of the bag when
I bring it home from the market and I put it into a glass jar whether that's in the pantry
or the fridge again so I know exactly what I have and everything's super clear and I
know what I need to go buy last but not least a couple things to always have in your fridge
eggs if you eat them lemons and limes for zesting because you know we're sort of obsessed with that
a hunk of parmesan cheese if you eat it a good mustard because good mustard is important and of
course our Haven's Kitchen sauces because they make any meal super quick super delicious and
super easy so there you have it a little guide to fridge organization remember a clear fridge is a
clear mind is a confident cook if you found this video helpful be sure to like it and subscribe
to see all of our future tips and tricks videos thank you so much for watching and cook happy