An Organized Gluten Free Pantry

I definitely feel blessed to have a nice sized pantry at this house. Normally base-housing pantries (in our experience) leave much to be desired when it comes to pantries, so this was a nice surprise when we moved in a little over 3 years ago. (It’s hard to believe it’s been that long already.) The down side to a large pantry is that it tends to become a catch-all mess if you don’t stay on top of organization.

Well, our pantry was in a sorry state when I decided to tackle it this morning. Things were here and there, and you couldn’t really see what all was in there at a quick glance. It needed a serious overhaul. The pups had me up way too early this morning, so I figured that it was as good of a time as any to get started. It was also trash day, so anything that needed to be tossed could go straight out to the trash.

I started by clearing everything out and placing in stacks of like objects. Bags and boxes of flours and sugars were set on the counter to be put in the appropriate Tupperware containers. (To those who don’t know, I was a Tupperware consultant for a few years which lead to a very nice stash of modular mates in which to store my pantry goods.)

Once everything was out, the floors were cleaned and shelves were wiped down. I put all of the pasta, grains, flours, and sugar in the modular mates and organized them on the shelves. The bulk grains (in 5 gallon buckets) were stacked in the back corner. Slowly, but surely, I found a place for everything in the pantry. Anything that wasn’t labeled received a label and faded labels were replaced with nice new ones.

Thanks to a nice score (or two) at the discount grocery store, I had a nice stash of inexpensive Keurig k-cups that needed to be stored. I decided to put those in modular mates as well to make storage easier. (Those flimsy cardboard boxes don’t hold up well, nor do they stack nicely. The gluten free crackers, mixes, and cereal (also from the discount grocery store) were all stacked so I could easily see how much we had on hand.

Now it’s easy to walk into the pantry and take inventory of everything that we have available for use. It makes me happy to see it all organized. No, not all of the containers are full. There are several that are empty, but I like to store them on the shelves. Yes, I have a lot of different gluten free flours on my pantry shelves. Now, I need to tackle the refrigerator. Well… maybe not today…