The Cheap Way To Declutter Your Freezer And Save So Much Space

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It's our guess that most home cooks have a freezer problem. Unless you have oodles of space and abundant resources, your total freezer room — inclusive of the one attached to your fridge plus any free-standing models you might own — is limited and always in high demand. For folks who enjoy cooking, this cold storage can get cluttered over time, with everything from stored leftover rice to fresh-picked Brussels sprouts vying for room in the frigid, dark recesses of your freezer(s). It's shockingly easy for the chaos to escalate to the point where you can't find what you're looking for at any particular point in time. According to a Hillshire Farm survey, half of all respondents surveyed have had to toss frozen items because they got forgotten.

Our favorite recent hack for storing items in our freezers in an easy and sensible way involves flat-freezing liquids or otherwise soft foods. Whether you have soups, stews, or sauces, we first recommend that you invest in some great leakproof, dishwasher-safe reusable freezer storage bags. After you fill them with food, lay the bags out on a cookie sheet and place that in your freezer. This gets them solid in a flat state. 

Once you have your flat bags, you can stack them atop each other for effortless, space-saving storage or even arrange them vertically like books on a shelf. With the holidays fast approaching, we can see this trick working beautifully for many elements of the traditional family feast, like mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, creamed corn, or mac 'n cheese.

There are some basic things to remember to make flat-freezing really work for you. First of all, always label your bags with the date they were frozen and what's inside. Some removable tape works well, but if you use a disposable bag, you can write on it with a Sharpie. If you store a lot of food in bags, consider getting plastic bins in which you can organize your flat-frozen bags by cuisine or urgency of consumption — older items in the front, newer items in the back.

When we discussed how to freeze and reheat soup, we learned that there are some freezer 101 tips that you should always keep in mind for safe and convenient food storage. First of all, don't put hot food in the freezer. When food is cooled from a hot state, it spends too long in the "danger zone" in which bacteria thrive. The secret is to store food in smaller portions (don't try to fit your whole pot of tomato bisque in one bag!). If it needs cooling, submerge it in an ice bath to get the job done fast.

If you are storing your food in a chest freezer, careful preparation is of the essence, since this is the type of freezer that's easiest to get cluttered. If you're using bins for your flat-stored food, make sure you label those as well as your bags. Vertical storage will give you a quick visual indicator of what's in the bags. For extra credit, consider attaching a small whiteboard to the outside of the freezer with a running list of what's stored inside.