Ah, the dreaded Tupperware drawer. Doesn’t every house have one? The drawer that holds every reusable plastic food storage container in your house; the drawer that is rarely organized; the drawer that never yields the matching top to the container you want in any sane amount of time? Yeah, that drawer. Well, here are a few tips to tame the wild beast.
1. Find a few brands of food storage containers you like. Do you want something sturdy and reusable year after year? Or are you content to purchase a more flimsy variety that you will use for a few months and then recycle and replace? Do you want to buy your containers at the grocery store or place special orders from the Tupperware or Amazon? Do you want glass or plastic?
2. Choose one brand out of your favorites that offers multiple sizes of containers with one interchangeable lid. Rubbermaid offers a durable set that all work with the same size lid. They also stack neatly for greater organization.
3. Purchase as many bottoms and lids as you think you need for a few days of food storage. Then, purchase a basket to hold the bottoms and another to hold the lids. make sure the baskets will fit easily into your kitchen drawers. Simple wire baskets are enough to keep your containers contained.
4. Stack your bottoms in one wire basket and put away. Stack your tops in the other basket. And voila! An organized, and easy-to-keep-organized drawer of containers.
5. Designate a second drawer in your kitchen for disposable food storage containers that you wouldn’t mind giving away the next time you are delivering a meal to a neighbor. Glad offers inexpensive containers that you can pick up at Target or your local grocery store that hold up well for a while, and come in so many different varieties that you can keep a few on hand in multiple sizes. And if you are determined to reuse the storage container from the last pre-packaged box of lunchmeat you bought, throw it in your disposable food storage container drawer. It will hold cookies just as well as Gladware, and won’t mess up the organization of your personal food storage container drawer.
