Is your freezer a black hole too? Need help organising it!

[Wittow]

I am a grown up woman but I really need help with this. My freezer is like a black hole. It is stuffed to the brim of random stuff and I have no idea how to organise it. Oh wise women of MN please help!

It's a 3 drawer freezer underneath a fridge, is there some sort of system I should follow to organise it better?

Yes, I'm currently defrosting something which is a sort of anonymous reddy-brown. I'm hoping chili, bolognese will be a bit bleurgh.

I am going to empty it and label batches from now on.

I have separate drawers for food stuff.
Veg, meat, fish,other. I have a sort out end of the week and if I find 2 packets of the same stuff put it in 1 bag or mix and match, example sprouts in with frozen veg. The other drawer is emergency food like batch cooking and frozen near end of date stuff I found in fridge.

Pretend you are skint.
We really are and have eaten almost to the end!! Some sardines, loose sausages, frozen raspberries, unidentified plastic box still to defrost!!

Yes, i should try that, just literally eat potluck until it is nearly empty and then I can start some sort of system.

Ok so I am a massive geek and I'm going to completely regret admitting this but I have a freezer inventory. In my defence we have a 3 drawer freezer plus a big chest freezer in the garage.

Anything that goes in the freezer is added to the inventory. Anything that comes out is crossed off. I do my weeks meal plan on a Saturday morning using the inventory so I make sure things are used and not just consigned to freezer hell where you find them 3 years later freezer burnt to hell.

@cricketmum84 that is utter genius, what a good idea. I need to do that too, I am also ashamed to admit my freezer is a shocking state, and although we're trying to go through it, there's still a lot of random stuff and frost in there

I don't have a particular system for what goes in which drawer but I do always know what's in there (I keep a list on a note app on my phone, cross things off when they get taken out and add at the bottom when put in so its in chronological order) and we have at least one meal a week where the main component is from the freezer. I try and make the freezer meal based on the oldest item in there to avoid things hanging around for years and getting freezer burnt and unrecognisable! I sometimes have a week of eating the really old stuff that no-one else wants for my lunch to avoid having to throw it away . My bete noire at the moment is DH buying and/or opening big new bags of chips or peas before the old one is finished because he 'didn't see it' or 'thought it had gone bad' , so we have lots of 1/4 full bags hanging around in the bottom drawer!

I would have a good old audit OP, go through the contents and write down what you've got, and chuck out anything that is actually ruined or definitely won't be eaten, perhaps defrost the freezer at the same time. Then arrange it all tidily so things can be accessed, and work out some meals to use stuff up, and if it's very full, meal plan to avoid buying anything new to go in there until the old is used...

XP with @cricketmum84 - high fives for the massive geekery!

Take a list of all stuff that isn't a whole frozen portion. Fold it up in your purse. When you food shop, use it as a list of what not to buy.

If you have, say, loads of sausages, make a vat of casserole with them in a slow cooker then tub them up into portions and refreeze .

If

How do you keep things tidy in a chest freezer? I currently have things in carrier bags but they all sort of crumple into each other, if that makes sense. Any tips?

@maxelly 🤚🏼 nothing wrong with a little Geekery 😂

Easy! I sold mine and bought a smaller one. Inventory is on the to-do list but I do know what's in there. Never remember to take stuff out in the morning to defrost though!

I also have a freezer inventory, so I try to remember to cross off or add to what's gone in.

I am moving back to the UK in October, so I have to try and use up everything in the freezer before then, so will be batch cooking from what's in there and eating that. I have 8 tubs of curry sauce, so we'll have a curry night once a month, and the fruit I can use up in crumbles etc.

Don't be afraid of some 'unique' combination meals when you have lots of bits left you're up. We once had pie served with pie... One was a normal steak pie and one was a cheapy cottage pie that was probably 75% mash topping so I just counted that as mash with very beefy gravy!

Freezer inventory is on my ‘to do’ list. I have stuff in there from weaning my 2 year old! I tend to buy things put them on top, eat them and replace, I have no idea what is further down! I think separating into drawers for fruit and veg, meat, fish, home cooked portions (oldest at the top) and ‘oven food’ is the way forward for us - I just need to actually do it! I’ve been stimulated by the brexit prepping threads, I need my freezer contents to actually be useful - not 2 year old breastmilk and 18 month old broccoli purée!

Oh, since the original pre baby feeezer stocktake and clear out I have at least labelled all the leftovers and batch cooking that’s gone in there - that’s an essential!

Just have one drawer for batch cooked grown up meals and one drawer for kids meals and one drawer of bought freezer foods. I tend to know what the kids meals are as I only really freeze about 3 or 4 different things, but the adult meals could be anything! I always think I don’t need need to label them as it’s obvious by looking, but everything looks the same when frozen!

I chucked everything out that had been there for years and was freezer burnt or just too old and started again. I now only put things in there that we actually want to eat, and don't just use it as a place to store horrible food that I shouldn't have bought in the first place. It helps a lot.

We use an app. Wunderlist. We both have access, anything that goes in gets added, anything taken out is ticked off. Meal plan based on the list to make sure stuff is rotated. When adding start the name with its category- eg meat - mince, fish - cod, prepared - Bolognese

4 drawers, one for desserts/fruit, one for meat/fish, one for prepared food and one for bags of veg.

We got a chest freezer a few months ago and it quickly became a black hole of stuff. I organised it a few weeks ago - what a difference! I've put some plastic baskets in it (the kind that stack) and have created a spreadsheet of what in it. I've split things into categories- veg, proteins, batch cooked food, carbohydrates, desserts. I've added cooked on / use by dates to everything

I update the spreadsheet once a week when I do my menu planning. I make sure I add batch cooking every week and also make sure I'm using two meals per week from the freezer. I write my shopping list, making sure I don't buy anything already in the freezer.

It's working well and as long as I keep on top of it, will do. It maybe adds 10 mins to my menu planning per week but helps loads with sorting out quick midweek dinners so I reckon there's a net time saving.

@cricketmum you are my hero!
I have 4 drawers - one for veg, one for cooking ingredients (herbs, leftover wine, chilliest), one for raw meat/fish, and a ‘ready meals’ drawer, which may be home made or shop bought.

A three drawer easy is easy to organise! Of course you need to identify what's in there are use it up. Start there - go through it and see if you know what everything is and how long it's been in there.

If you can't identify it or how long it's been there, probably best to bin it.

Then try and organise what you have - I have mine in categories by draw: veg, meat/bread, meals/leftovers/things I made (I always make extra and freeze) then the fourth draw as overflow or seasonal - for instance in the summer the ice lollies go in there.

Then eat whatever doesn't fit in each draw over the next few days - for instance if your veg draw is full, eat only frozen veg for a few days until your veg does fit in that draw. Then don't buy any until there's room!

If you can be bothered, label things when you put them in there. I don't bother really tbh, I'm quite good at rotating the meat etc and not buying more until it's really needed.

I use my meal planning app to keep track of what’s in the freezer. And I bought a load of cheap sticky labels off EBay so that I can label things easily.

Yes throw 98%of it away and start again. That's what I did the other day. I kept the things I knew I would use in the next 2 week's (about 5 things) and binned the rest because I wouldn't have even considered defrosting it and letting anyone eat it, had been in there too long. Such a waste but not it's so much better.

If you freeze home cooking, use old takeaway boxes and write on them in Sharpie. Doesn’t help finding stuff but I do know what’s what!