In my previous post, I shared my top 12 kitchen tools I can’t live without, and how I used them to save time and effort.
There are millions of kitchen tools and gadgets, but just like everything else, I find less is more.
Equally important to making your everyday cooking easy, efficient, and enjoyable, especially on a stressful day — is the habit to label your food containers and keep your kitchen, especially fridge and freezer organized and ready-to-go.
I know… Not only do I not have time, but I’m lazy and hate organizing… It’s such a pain to spend time labeling our food!, isn’t it? But when we don’t, we waste so much time and effort looking for the ingredients or leftovers wondering what and where they are, as well as how old they are!
And we eventually end up throwing away quite a bit of food that was hiding behind something else until it got moldy because our fridge is an unorganized mess!
Anyone guilty of that? That was me years ago! I used to feel like I was forced to play “treasure hunting” and “hide and seek” with my food, which added extra stress on prepping meals. Not recommended! At all!
Fast forward, after I developed my Kitchen Wizard Method, I figured out a simple way to organize my kitchen that saves me lots of time and effort during meal prep.
Once my food was organized, meal prep became such a breeze. Everything inside of our fridge is now visible, accessible, and ready to go! And cooking has become way more fun.
By spending one extra minute now while you are putting your food away, you will save 10 minutes of your time later. This adds up to many hours of stress savings over time!
Disclaimer: The following list includes Amazon Affiliate links.
Masking Tape
- Cut or tear with your finger, put it on the container with the what's inside and the date you made it.
- Make sure to use a regular scissors, not the kitchen shears for this -- it will dull the blades! (This one in the image comes with the handy dispenser.)
Waterproof Marker
- The more visible the label, the better. I use black, thick sharpie for most labelling jobs. For small containers, use ultra thin.
Magnetized Memo Pad/Marker Holder
- You can have everything for labelling in one place where you use it - on your fridge door! The less time you need to look for things, the more likely you label, and the more time and money you save!
Quart-Size Freezer Bags
- Freeze your pre-prepped ingredients (chopped onion, etc) and Flexipe™ Bases in quart-size freezer bags thin and flat for no-thaw cooking later! Regular quart-size Ziploc bags will do, but those shown above are re-usable, leak-free, and BPA-free.
- Use snack-size bags for smaller items, such as grated ginger, etc.
Smallish, Clear Containers That Are Stackable
- Square/rectangular shapes are ideal and save the most space in the fridge. Clear sided containers allow you to see what's inside and how much without opening.
- Try to match the amount of food and the size of the container. Unnecessarily large containers tend to block the view inside of the fridge.
- I recommend those with interchangeable lids.
- Daiso and other Japanese dollar stores sell many extra small-sized containers.
There you have it!
What are the kitchen tools or equipment you can’t live without? Let me know and why.
Have fun Kitchen Wizarding!
PS: Did you know there’s a simple & smart cooking method that helps your everyday cooking WAAAY easier, faster and more flexible?
Find out how FOR FREE with the most popular chapter “Tomato Onion Flexipe™ Base and Recipes” from my cookbook, “Kitchen Wizard Flexipes™”!
