If you have a chest-style deep freeze, you probably know how difficult it is to keep everything accessible. Deep freezer organization is not easy. Deep freezers are great for helping families save money and cook prepare freezer meals ahead of time, but they're really difficult to keep organized.
I've tried using milk crates and boxes to keep things organized, but it didn't work for me. I found it difficult to pull all of the different boxes out of the freezer, find what I needed, and then put everything back again.
Then, I saw Laura of I'm an Organizing Junkie's method for organizing her deep freeze with reusable bags.
We always seem to accumulate freebie reusable shopping bags, so this was my chance to put them to good use! Here's how it worked:
Deep Freezer Organization with Reusable Bags – Step-by-Step Instructions
These are the simple steps I used to organize your small chest freezer.
I wanted to make sure everything was within easy reach, and I didn't want to invest in expensive bins.
Materials Needed
- Time! It took me a while to go through the whole freezer. Depending on how much food you have, you might want to set aside an hour or two.
- Gloves. I used oven mitts, but you might be better off using your winter gloves to keep your hands warm.
- Reusable shopping bags. If you don't have any, ask your friends, or put up a request for some on Freecycle. A lot of people have a surplus of freebie reusable bags.
- Trash bags for yucky food.
- A crate, baskets, or cardboard boxes for the bottom of the deep freeze (optional).
- Labels or tags for reusable bags. I used gift tags I had on hand.
- Markers for labeling.
Chest Freezer Organization – Step-by-Step Instructions
- Gather your materials.
- Clear some space to put frozen foods as you're emptying out your freezer. There will be a mess, but it's worth it!
- Take items out of your freezer one by one. Inspect them to make sure you still want to keep them.
- Throw out items that no longer look edible. Look for signs of freezer burn, discoloration, etc.
- Arrange all food you're keeping into categories. Your categories are going to depend on your family and what you eat. Here are some categories I used…
- Chicken
- Frozen Veggies
- Frozen Fruit
- Ground Turkey/Sausage
- Bread
- Cheese
- Pork
- Ground Beef/Steaks
- Decide if you want to do an inventory of your deep freeze. I did an inventory when I first organized our deep freezer, but I didn't keep up with it. It is kind of nice to know how the contents of your freezer for menu planning purposes.
- Put each food category into a separate reusable bag. For example, I have all of my frozen vegetables in one bag, all of our chicken in another bag, etc.
- Label each reusable bag. I used some gift tags I had on hand and tied them to the handles of the reusable bags.
- If you want to, put a crate or box at the bottom of your deep freeze. You can store less frequently used items in the bottom of the deep freeze, and the container will keep it all in one spot so you don't have to dig for them later.
- Put your reusable bags back into the freezer. If you can, arrange them so you can see your labels easily.
- Take out the trash!
- Celebrate your freshly organized chest freezer!
I'm loving this way of organizing our deep freeze. While I still have to pull out several bags to get to what I need sometimes, it's a much easier storage solution because everything has a handle.
Even though I haven't been good at keeping up with my freezer inventory, I have a better idea of what's available in our freezer.
Each time I get into one of the bags, I can tell how much of a certain item we have left.
If I notice that we're starting to be low on frozen vegetables, for example, I can add that to our grocery shopping list.
Having our deep freezer organized has saved me money and time because I'm no longer buying stuff I thought we had run out of because it was buried in the bottom layer in the depths of our freezer.
And, I love that I could complete this project without spending any money!
What food goes where in a freezer?
In the freezer organization method I explained above, the reusable shopping bags serve as dividers, and you can move things around as needed.
But if you have an upright freezer, you may want to be more intentional about how you arrange your freezer space.
In a previous home, we had an upright freezer, so we set up zones for different frozen food purchases.
We ended up stacking boxes so we could easily see how much we had. We tried to put our newest purchases on the bottom layer, and food we wanted to use up soon on the top layer.
People use dollar store bins and plastic magazine holders from the Container Store to organize freezers.
If you want to invest in plastic bins, make sure you measure the distance between your shelves before purchasing.
No matter what organization system you decide to use, taking the time to set up zones and systems will make your entire freezer easy to navigate.
More Deep Freezer Organization Tips
Here are a few things that helped me maintain our system:
- White board – I bought an expensive magnetic whiteboard and put it on the side of our fridge. Whenever someone uses up the last of something, whether it's from the freezer, refrigerator, or pantry, they write it down on the white board. This helps me know what I need to pick up at the grocery store.
- Freezer Inventory – Having a an inventory of everything that's in our compact freezer is so helpful.
- Leftovers don't go in the deep freeze. Unless we have a lot of meat leftover that I want to freeze, I don't put leftovers in our chest freezer. I've found that we are move likely to forget when we store food in the deep freeze. If I keep it in the fridge, I'm more likely to use it up.