To think there must be a better way to use a chest freezer?

[JellyFlooding]

Got a chest freezer recently and I love it. But it's quickly descended into complete chaos and I have no idea what's at the bottom any more.

We have a wire basket at the top on either side, but what can we do to organise all the stuff below? I started off with sections for meat, veg etc but it's all slid together and it's a complete hash now.

Does everyone just tolerate this? Or does anyone have any genius ideas for doing it better?

What you need is some sticky backed whiteboard paper on top of the chest freezer lid to list what is in it. And so do I!

From a fellow chaotic chest freezer owner.

we got one of those blackboard-things that you can stick to walls etc. We used one of those white pens to divide it to sections (meat, veg, desserts) etc
and were scrupulous about crossing things off when we used them, or adding them back when we put something in in chalk.
A whiteboard would also work.

You have to be ruthless about it though, and once a quarter i used to rummage in the bottom and we'd eat anything frozen before that quarter.

Helped by being a) married to a chef and b) my daughter loves organising stuff.

Would that work for you?

We never quite managed to keep it up to date, but we tried to introduce a system where we just wrote on the side of it with a dry-wipe board marker.

Cardboard boxes, something like six bottles of wine come in. You can keep stuff bundled together in categories. Don't use plastic chests - too brittle if they haven't been designed for it.

Use it to keep the bodies of your enemies?

There’s some really god videos on YouTube on this exact topic! Basically a combination of internal compartments/bins and a list on top - like they do in commercial kitchens.

I use storage baskets that stack on top of each other. One for each type of food ie meat in one, pizzas in another, veg in another. Be ruthless and don't over buy or your freezer becomes chaotic.

😂🤣😂 Excellent idea - you can store mine too if you like, I’m peri and hating everyone at the moment!

Sorry, I should have said that we tried a list on a magnetic whiteboard and we just didn't keep it up to date at all, so ended up spending ages scrabbling around for the mythical bag of carrots before realising they'd been eaten.

Cardboard boxes though, that's a potentially good idea. Do you need really tall ones?

Which ones do you use?

I'll put my hands up to the over buying. I think the excitement of finally having lots of freezer space got to me so I definitely have gone over board on stocking up.

Assuming that you also have another freezer elsewhere, I'd keep all the frequently-used stuff like frozen veg in that one. When we had the chest freezer, it was mainly for batch-cooked meals in tubs, so we organised it by size of tub (then failed to keep our list up-to-date), and used the baskets for bread products and meat/fish.

I keep mine in small supermarket bags - meat in one, ready meals / batch cooked in another, potato products, and veg. Put the “box” shaped bags towards the bottom and then the veg / potato ones on top.

How big is this freezer ?

We sectioned off with cardboard into 4 sections with a lower section and an upper section in a wire basket, so it’s portioned into 8 sections.

Our stuff is in easy lift out carrier bags so we don’t have to bend and rummage, eg Sainsburys bag is meat, Asda bag is veg, Tesco bag pot products etc. it’s a PITA tbh.

I like the sound of pp baskets if they could provide a link.

I use the plastic supermarket bags for life - veg, meat, fruit etc.
Hadn't thought of different colour ones for different things (but that's because I've only got Tesco ones), that's a good shout.

If you’re anywhere near Hamster Baskets they make custom made freezer storage baskets.

Another one here who uses bags for life to section it off.

I use shopping bags so essentially 4 bags for lives. One is for frozen veg, one for premade frozen dinner portions ( I freeze all left overs in individual portions), one for meat and one for my gluten free bread rolls or any other gluten free bits.

2 bags at bottom 2 on top so makes it into 4 quadrants not dissimilar to shelves.

I use those big checked bags you can buy, red check for meat, blue for fish, green for veg, red for fruit and black for packaged meals. Works for us and easy at defrost time

I also bought a set of stacking freezer baskets and have different things in each one plus ghe sliding basket and a couple of things on the little shelf under the sliding basket. The stacking baskets make it easy to see what I'm looking for and they are easy to lift out to get to the bottom....

I'm looking for good tips here. We went through ours before Christmas and found three legs of lamb and some short ribs in the botto. Completely forgotten about!

Bags for organisation but get some new ones so it's all clean inside. I mean don't use the bag for life that's been on a filthy self checkout etc.

My freezer is absolute chaos, what nightmares are made of. About once a year I sort it all out, vow I will never let it get out of hand again, and it always does.

Bags for life is bloody genius. I cant face doing it now (in garage so too bloody cold) but once the weather is a bit warmer I will definitely do that.

I'd second cardboard boxes, not too large and keep each box for separate types of food. I just picked boxes which would fit together to mostly fill the bottom space and use each box for a different category such as fruit, veg, portions of soups, casseroles etc.

You do need to be disciplined about the list to get the best out of it and then "stock take" a couple of times a year to check its up to date and make sure nothing is going out of date (and that you haven't bought yet more frozen peas to add to the four bags already there!).