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?

@JontyDoggle37 what is this "leftover wine" you speak of? 😂😂

Aw shucks thanks :)

@cricketmum84 ‘leftover wine’ is what I call the wine that I’ve decanted into pots and rammed in the freezer the next morning to stop me drinking it the next night. In the morning, the force is strong. In the evening, I am open to any suggestion under the sun...

Small pots of wine in the freezer are very useful for recipes that need a glass of wine and you want to avoid opening the bottle to put a glass in a spag bol or whatever and then thinking, fuck it, I might as well drink the rest.

Protein on one shelf, veg on another, booze propped up on the peas. (Vodka doesn’t freeze) That’s the fridge-freezer indoors.

Out in the shed, there’s a massive freezer which only has dog food, although one small section has some human stuff.

We have 2 freezers, which is ridiculous seeing as there's only me and DP and he works away quite a lot, and I don't seem to eat that much frozen food.

Both were jam packed but there is light at the end of the tunnel in project 'eat all the crap lurking in there'.

I'm down to one drawer of unidentified frozen batch cooked things, from 3, and it is a little less full and what is in there is getting better, in that it is more likely to get eaten fairly soon.

Aim for the undercounter freezer in the utility room is one drawer of meat, one of fish, seafood and frozen berries, one for frozen reduced ready meals etc and one for a small amount of batch cooked stuff.

Freezer in main fridge freezer to have a small amount of quorn/fish fingers/potato waffles, drawer of veg, and one for ice cubes, lemon slides and maybe a bit of bread.

One eventuality that I have to face is that the main fridge freezer is over 20 years old and won't last forever. When the day comes, I want a slightly bigger fridge which will mean a smaller freezer, especially as more insulation in modern models seems to mean less freezing capacity too. So when we need a new one, I don't want to not be able to transfer over the contents.

Maels post has reminded me that I think there is some catfood in one of the freezers, which adds a whole new dimension to freezer roulette, especially as I don't label.

Top shelf - Ice cream & tub of ice lollies in summer (old, clean, ice cream tub), frozen potato ie. chips/wedges/smiley faces

2nd - frozen veg/Yorkshires for lazy days.

3rd - generally quick stuff (sausages, chicken kievs, pre-made pie type things) and some fresh meat.

4th - cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, anything that won't fit in the other three drawers.

Chest basket 1 - frozen fruit, home made pastry (hate making pastry so tend to make lots at once), gf flour and powdered milk, frozen muffins for pack ups.

Basket 2 - usually 3 loaves of bread, packet or two of rolls, garlic baguette, part baked bread...basically any bread!

Big compartment - leftovers in takeaway tubs labelled with sharpie. Usually used on Tuesday's for speed as we go out not long after getting in from school. Meat & anything that doesn't fit in the fridge-freezer also goes in there.

My friend took in my Christmas shop for me & laughed when I reorganised her putting away

Top - meat and fish
2nd - vegetables and fruit
3rd - weird shapes, including batch cooming
4th - - OH's crap-- ice cream, donner rolls, crispy pancakes, choc ices, vodka

Use whiteboard markers to write on the freezer door a list of what is in there. When you take something out adjust the list. When you go shopping take a photo of the list with you.

I love an eat out of the freezer challenge. We have 3 freezers and I know exactly what's in each. No lists, just do. Mind you everything is labelled.

We eat freezer meals 4 nights out of 7 combined with fresh stuff. Nothing better than clearing out the freezer!

@Elisheva that's a really good idea!!

@economymode we use the big canvas shopping bags in our chest freezer. The red one is for meat, green one for bags or fruit and veg and the blue for bread/garlic bread/pastry based items.

Then we have a ledge on one side where all leftovers go in takeaway tube and all labelled and dated. I make sure I use 2 of these a week otherwise we would be overrun lol!

The leftovers in takeaway tubs are great for my 14 year old who needs to eat every 3 hours or he proclaims he is starving 😂 he can warm up a small portion of chilli/curry/whatever when he gets home to put him on until main meal is served.

Top drawer - ingredients (chopped onions, herbs etc) and frozen leftovers

Middle drawer: things you bung in the oven to eat. (Oven chips, onion rings etc)

Bottom drawer: ice cubes, ice cream & lollies

I'm so ashamed of my freezer. When I have time my plan is to bin 98% of it (like a pp) and start again. It upsets me wasting food when others have so little but half of the stuff I shouldn't have bought. My new plan is to only freeze batch cooked stuff, curries chillies, Bolognese. Also frozen peas are always useful.

I have 2 fridge freezers and a chest. The one in the kitchen has 2 full drawers and the top oneis a funny shaped one that can only take those blue ice blocks. The otger 2 have the peas, corn on the cobs, Yorkshire puddings etc. The other has ice lollies etc.

Fridge Freezer 2 is old and inherited. We didnt want to get rid as there is nothing wrong with it. When it breaks i wont replace but its handy as it has the beer in!! It has 3 compartments and holds fish fingers, frozen fish, waffles, frozen ready meals etc

The other is a small chest and has frozen chips, batch cooking of currys/bolgs/chillis, frozen chicken breasts shuch i buy fresh from the butcher in bulk, pizzas etc.

Oh and bread! Always a couple of loaves in esp over winter as i can get snowed in.

I have a chest freezer with two hanging baskets. It's the space underneath that kills me - DH tends to rummage and things get misplaced.

I've tried using boxes underneath, but it's not working. Any ideas?!

We seem to have the same problem. Will try sturdier canvas bags to see if that helps. I tried boxes but didn't work for me, for whatever reason. Doesn't help that rummagers don't always follow the system!

Think of it as a store cupboard rather than as a place to freeze your guilt in the form of leftovers you don’t actually want to eat.

Use whiteboard markers to write on the freezer door a list of what is in there. When you take something out adjust the list.

This (you would have to write on the drawer fronts). I have a chest freezer and write on the lid with a whiteboard marker.

But I agree with the others. You need to eat it down and start from scratch. In a freezer your size you should have (IMO)
1x block cheese
1 x butter
1 x bread substitute (wraps take up very little space)
meat
fish
vegetables
some cooked meals
bag for scraps that when large enough can be used to make soup.
random items (labelled and dated)

Would coloured bags help in the chest freezers (I’m thinking of the reusable square ish ones you get in supermarkets - I have seen them in black, beige, green, blue and wine). Maybe if there was a colour for each category (veg, meat, bread, potato, readymeal, dairy...) it might limit the rummaging damage.

A sharpie laundry pen is great for labeling food in the freezer.

Ooooh lots of useful tips here, thank you very much!

I have decided I am going to use up the contents of freezer with a few bits of fresh and then have a proper system! I like the idea of a drawer for each type of thing and will try that.

So.... I bit the bullet this morning and did a bit of an audit. I have taken out to defrost some seabass fillets that have a date of april 2017 on them; are they going to kill me if I eat them???

I have a system that lasts until I get super short on space.

Top drawer for bread, ice cream and misc items.

Bottom drawer for frozen veg and fruit.

Middle drawer for frozen batch cooked meals or meat etc. Freeze meals in bags to save space over tubs.

Label meals you put in with date and what they are!

If you get too organised it does take away the fun of ‘freezer surprise’ nights where you defrost a meal with no idea what it is!