How To Organize Your Pantry Like Bobby Flay
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We always favor watching closely when celeb chefs show us how they personally put together their home cooking space, because their experience leads to some seriously helpful hacks. In a recent Instagram collab, superstar chef Bobby Flay took us on a pantry tour... and we're obsessed with his creative, unique system for organizing his sizeable collection of ingredients.
While many home chefs organize their pantries by type of container (bottles, cans, boxes), Flay chooses to group ingredients in his walk-in pantry by cuisine. So, for instance, his top shelf contains his extensive rotation of pasta, from quirky black squid-ink penne to macaroni. Right next to it, he keeps canned tomatoes (our pick for the best brand of canned tomatoes comes from Italy) and a sauce base that he uses to whip up easy spaghetti. Below, he amasses his collection of chilies and spicy ingredients, just down the shelf from his Asian section that includes coconut milk and curry paste. Wondering where Bobby Flay stores his beloved go-to store-bought Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce? It's with all the condiments, right next to the ketchup and multiple varieties of mustard.
Home cooks who are trying to declutter years of "shove it in and forget it" in their pantries may struggle for a logical, straightforward system that helps to manage their stock of ingredients. Flay's pantry organization is intuitive and fuss-free. We love it!
Organizing by cuisine isn't the only lesson we learned in Flay's pantry
Like many an organization influencer on TikTok, Bobby Flay features lots of clear plastic containers in his pantry. There are tall vessels for fettuccine and linguine, and short, square airtight boxes that contain common spices. Believe it or not, Flay isn't aiming for an aesthetic pantry that's fit for a magazine spread — he just likes to be able to see when his stock is running low. If you have a small, Bluetooth-enabled labelmaker, all the better: Labeling your containers will allow you to grab what you need with no more than a glance. Remember how Ina Garten taught us how to organize a pantry by facing all the labels outward?
A clever home chef will watch how the pros do things and combine several of their favorite tips to craft a pantry that perfectly suits their individual needs. Few of us are lucky enough to have a massive kitchen storage space like Bobby Flay, but we can apply his know-how even in a more modest pantry by keeping ingredients for like cuisines together. On taco Tuesday, you will likely always need your cumin, your chili powder, and your tortillas, for instance. Using clear plastic containers takes the mystery out of keeping track of what we need to buy.