I love a well organized kitchen! After sharing my favorite kitchen drawer organizers with you {here} a few months back, it’s time to move on to kitchen cabinets and pantries. So today I’m sharing ten tips and ideas on how to organize your kitchen cabinets. From whipping your food storage containers into organized shape to adding smart storage for your wraps & foils and tackling the cabinet under your sink, hopefully you’ll find an idea or two that makes your kitchen a more functional & organized space. Let’s get to it… (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})
1. Rack Up Your Cans
A smart way to store cans that makes the most of your cabinet or pantry space is with a can rack organizer such as {this one}. We used it to store canned goods in the cabinet above our pantry in our previous home:
and to store sparkling water cans (I have a bit of a Bubly obsession) in the pantry of our current home.
Another option is to use a tiered riser such as {this one} that progressively elevates each tier of cans so that they’re all easy to see and access:
2. Divvy Up Your Cookie Sheets
Without any type of cabinet organizers for your cookie & baking sheets, it’s easy to cause a mini avalanche every time you pull one out. Adding simple dividers to your cabinet are a game changer! You can have a carpenter install wood dividers or there are a few simple options for taking care of the job yourself. You could install metal dividers such as {these} that attach to the top and back of your cabinets with a few small screws:
They’re available in both 12″ and 18″ heights (choose the tallest height that you have room for in your cabinet). And I like that you can choose your own spacing when you install them. Another even simpler option is to use a free standing rack such as {this one} that we had in the deep cabinet under our downdraft kitchen cooktop before we remodeled:
3. Give It a Spin
Another way to keep items in your cabinets and pantry from getting buried in the back is to use spinning storage. We keep oils, vinegars, and sauces on {this 10″ turntable} in our pantry:
You could also choose a double decker turntable like {this one} if you have a cabinet with extra height. To maximize your storage space, choose a turntable that’s almost as deep as the shelf it’s sitting on. {This turntable} comes in 9″, 11″, and 14″ options.
The same concept works for spices too! In our previous home we kept our most-used spices in a cabinet on {this revolving spice rack}:
One spinning storage piece I’ve tried that I don’t recommend is {this spice spinner}. While it gets good reviews and has a smart design, I found that it wasn’t very sturdy (especially the top shelf), didn’t spin easily, and it didn’t clear the small lip on the bottom shelf of my cabinet.
4. Add Pull-Out Trash Bins To a Basic Cabinet
When we remodeled the kitchen in our previous home, one of my favorite additions was a cabinet that came with double pull-out trash bins and an integrated paper towel holder:
The good news is that you don’t need to wait until you get new cabinets to add the pull-out trash can feature! If you have a base cabinet that has an opening of at least 15″ wide, you can retrofit it with {this Rev-A-Shelf Double Pull Out Waste Container} that attaches to the cabinet door and functions the exact same way.
5. Stack & Rack Your Food Storage Containers
In our previous home, we kept our food storage containers organized in a drawer but since drawers are lacking in our current kitchen, I needed an organizing solution for one of our cabinets. What I’ve found works best is to stack my food storage containers on one shelf and store the lids in {this lid organizer} on another:
I’ve switched my food storage containers entirely over to {these glass storage containers} that I swear by. They are dishwasher, freezer, microwave and oven safe to 350 degrees, don’t stain, stack well, and have tops that are super easy to put on and off.
6. Update Your Under the Sink Organization
The cabinet under your kitchen sink isn’t always the easiest of places to organize since you need to work around your sink plumbing and garbage disposal. But a few of the organizers that have worked well for me include {this glass penny candy jar} that I put my dishwashing tablets in and {this beverage can organizer} where I store my dish and water bottle scrubbers. I also love that it has a flat lipped top that you can store things on:
While I had drawer space for my dish towels in our old house, in our new house I needed to store them under the kitchen sink. I found that {this 2-tier wire drawer organizer} was the perfect fit for the long but narrow space that I have (I pulled it out of the dark abyss of my sink cabinet to get a better pic!):
I love that each drawer has an easily moveable divider that keeps anything you store in your drawer in place regardless of how full or empty it is:
7. File Your Water Bottles
Do you have any magazine racks for filing away old magazines that you no longer use? Flip them on their back and use them to store water bottles:
It’s so much easier to grab the one you need this way instead of wading through a sea of standing bottles to find one that might be buried in the back. {These highly rated stackable racks} will also get the job done.
8. Slide On Extra Storage Space
If you have any kitchen cabinets with extra space above the items you’re storing, it’s the perfect spot for one of {these under shelf baskets}:
You can use them to store wraps & foils, napkins, coffee, vitamins, or any other light weight items (they aren’t equipped to handle heavy items like dishes).
9. Stack Up Your Pans
If you store your cooking pans in kitchen cabinets instead of drawers, {this pan organizer rack} is a must-have! Instead of having to rifle through your pans to find the one you want at the bottom of a teetering stack, each pan rests in its own slot so your pans stay upright and easy to grab. You can orient the rack either vertically:
or horizontally depending on which works best with your cabinet:
10. Don’t Skip Your Cabinet Door Backs
There are several clever add-ons to the back of your cabinet doors that will up the organization and functionality of your kitchen. My favorites are {these spray bottle hangers} that hang with removable Command strips. I use them to hang my most often used spray bottles so they’re easy to grab but aren’t cluttering up my kitchen countertop:
(See {this post} on our kitchen remodel reveal for other kitchen sources)
Another super simple addition you can make to the back of your kitchen cabinets is a set of {these Command spring clips}. You can use them to clip on things such as most used recipes, grocery lists, letters to mail, or coupons:
And with that my kitchen cabinet organization ideas are a wrap! If you want other ideas for whipping your kitchen into shape, these are a few related blog posts that you might find helpful:
Kitchen Remodel Ideas on a Budget
10 Best Kitchen Drawer Organizers
Thanks as always for stopping by,
debra @ 5th and state says
thank you dear friend! been busy ordering away. organizational skills elude me, and am determined to get better with your help
thank you!
Debra
Karen B. says
Hi Kris,
This is great. You find the best organizers for us. My smallish new kitchen will need some help in the organizer area. I’m saving this post for future reference.
Karen B.
Mary says
Great ideas, thank you!! Just ordered the can organizer shelves and the command spray bottle hangers.
Janice says
You always have the best ideas! I, too, enjoy and need an organized kitchen. I haven’t found a good way to organize my Pyrex type dishes that are stored under my downdraft stove. Do you think the pan storage rack would work for 9×13, 8×8 dishes? Thank you for sharing more great finds!
Kris Jarrett says
Hi Janice – I think that’s a great idea for storing Pyrex dishes!
Nancy says
For the first time ever, I
have a nice large pantry. But so much gets lost in there! The shelves are a little too close for tiers. I just bought a Closet Maid door rack with 8 adjustable shelves from Target. It’s deluxe, collects all the small items where you can easily see them and holds lots of large Costco jars also. It’s freed up so much room I can use the pantry for small kitchen appliances now. I think they would be valuable in craft and kids rooms also.
Kris Jarrett says
That’s an awesome solution for gaining more space!
Phyllis Hopkins says
Please, please, please stop storing cleaners under the sink or any lower cabinet. They are poisonous & therefore a danger to children that you arm putting within their reach, even with child proofing the doors.
Instead put them in upper cabinets, even if you don’t have children in your home. You may have them visit & in all probabilty not remember to child proof the home when you are pprepping it for guests.
Kris Jarrett says
While you definitely need to consider how you store things to make sure all potential hazards are out of reach if there are young children in the home, I don’t think every home in America needs to be childproof. We have no young children and none of our local friends or family do either so we store things in a way that works best for us.
Nicole says
Please do not hang heavy items on doors. As a kitchen cabinet manufacturer, I can tell you that those doors are not mean to hold bottles of cleaning products, especially with the swing momentum the weight produces. Eventually the doors will lose their 90 degree angles and the door will sag. Or the screws will pull out or the hinges will twist in their settings -all leading to sad looking cabinets.
Even if you’re warrantied and can get the door replaced, there’s a very good chance that door will not match the color of the rest of your cabinets either because the color lot being years different or from light exposure fading paint or darkening/yellowing wood varnish.
In the long run it is not worth it to damage the look of your kitchen just to store a few bottles. If you need the storage that much, run tension curtain rods from the dollar store across the interior of cabinets themselves and hang the bottles that way.