How do you sort out your freezer?

[outofofficeagain]

I have an American style fridge freezer with two freezer drawers at the bottom.

They’re always jammed with stuff. I could never find anything and I’ve just sorted it out finding three bags of frozen peas, two bags of sweetcorn and loads of freezer bags full of an identified objects.

How do I sort it out so I can see everything and it doesn’t get buried underneath? How do I keep track of what’s actually in there? Do I need containers? Do I need to just arrange it differently or do I just have to except that I’m going to have to rummage?

MIL in an unsupervised moment completely reorganised our freezer and then just stuck post its on the drawers saying what was in there. Suprisingly they’ve stayed on and it’s marginally more organised.

I find the trick is never to let her shove little pots of unidentifiable veg in there in the first place after a Sunday lunch. And oh my god, if she can turn stale bread into breadcrumbs and fill the freezer with it!!!

Labels! Or sharpie on plastic bags. I’m guilty of just shoving things in (it’s just three drawers at the bottom of my fridge/freezer) and really need to sort it but labels are the way to go for those mystery foods.

Make a list. Put it on fridge or noticeboard. Cross it off as you use it. Then update excel document sporadically. Works for us.

I know I have marinated chicken in 3. Chilli in 5.

I sincerely admire your organising skills 🙏

We have a running list of the main meals stuck to the freezer. I think in units of portions to feed 4, generally, with a few single portions for soup etc. I keep the main meals in one drawer, either pre cooked or a pack of sausages, lb of raw chicken etc. Veg, bread and ice cream in the other. Chips wherever they will fit.

A few times a year I get exasperated and tidy it up. We have three drawers and things are assigned a drawer, but sometimes things get over full and need to be tidied up.

How do I do it? With trepidation and despair…..

I have more or less given up on lists, as I don’t seem to be able to keep them up to date.My only useful tip is to get a pair of insulated gloves and keep them by the freezer, the at least rummaging around for something for supper doesn’t result in numb fingers.

Oh and I find if you write on a box in Sharpie, you can scrub the writing off in hot soapy water. I can't speak for your tubs but this works on mine. So no faffing with labels.

With chicken I will do a default portion size but also "meagre" ones, which I know will need to be padded out with beans etc. Literally write "chicken X4 meagre".

I have a chest freezer so tend to group things into bags or plastic boxes, i.e breaded chicken products, raw meat, frozen veg, bread products, fish/prawns, potato products, mash chips etc, then I can just lift them out and find things easily.

My Christmas present to myself this year was a label printer. Everything that goes in the freezer has a label showing what it is and the date it went in. I know it's tragically nerdy but seeing a stack of neatly labelled boxes in the freezer makes me smile and it's way easier to keep track of what's there.

I have a full size freezer with the drawers as well.

I try to keep in that each drawer is for a particular items.

Very bottom drawer is ice cream and lollies (it's summer here so a busy drawer).
Next one up is frozen veg, frozen chips etc.
One above is leftovers in marked containers or ziploc bags, and bread.
Then bacon, sausages etc.
Meat and chicken are in the top drawers.

I just pack away into the correct drawer, and then it just becomes a habit really. Then everyone else just knows which drawer to open for what they are looking for.

I just have a three drawer (fridge) freezer, just for me as I'm on my own. I can't believe how jammed and disorganised it can get if I don't keep an eye on it. I can only imagine how full and mixed up the mahoosive big family freezers get, so I can empathise!

I don't use meat much, so I use that fresh. Drawer one is frozen berries and veg. Drawer 2 is fish, pastry, grated cheese, other cheese, spare 1/2 litre milk, and potato mash and croquettes. Which I love! Drawer three is bread, my homemade and sliced for toast. + a few croissants and muffins.

Once I put the right stuff in the right drawer it's ok, but I don't always manage that!

Magnetic whiteboard on the fridge door, updated as things are added and removed. And label all the pots and freezer bags.

We've got a fridge freezer in the kitchen and a separate freezer in the garage. DH audited both a couple of weeks ago and made a list of contents which he stuck on the kitchen F/F. Then we know what's where and tick things off as we use them or add things in as we buy them. I suspect by the end of this month it will be out of date but DH will be able to keep himself occupied making another one!

I have several small drawers which means (a) I know where to find stuff and (b) I know what I've got so I don't buy more frozen peas until the existing packet is almost finished.

Veg and fruit (peas, sweetcorn, berries)
Raw meat and fish
Bread and ice-cream
Cooked meals/leftovers

If you've got two large drawers, buy or make a couple of dividers from rigid cardboard or plastic and make smaller compartments for different types of food. You can adjust the size of your sections depending on what you type of food you have most of.

I also keep a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie in the kitchen drawer with the freezer bags and plastic tubs. I write on bags as I tend not to reuse them. I put masking tape labels on the tubs as it saves scrubbing.

4 drawers, always keep things in the same place . Put everything in ziplock bags do they don’t make a mess, check it every week when writing shopping list. If anything won’t last the week buy another and put in flap at top until item needs replacing,

I have a tall stand alone freezer. Ice cream in top drawer. Bread and homemade meals) leftovers next. Vegetable and fish in another drawer. Then bottom two for meat. Uaed to have a chest freezer but could never bloody find anything 😂😂 so i brought myself a new one 😂

One drawer for vegetables, one drawer for ready to eat things like frozen soup, sausages, burger type things, and one drawer for random extras that don’t fit into the other categories.

And random leftovers would go in the ready to eat drawer, but I try not to freeze anything less than one full portion.

This person has compartmentalised her big drawers. She takes stuff out of boxes which means you can get more in but I think I prefer the box as a visual prompt of the contents and you'd have to label/write on the bags. I tend to fold the ends of half empty boxes anyway, more for neatness, not that I want to cram more in my freezer!

https://simplyorganized.me/2015/08/organized-freezer-drawers.html

I think what you need is another freezer.

We have a rectangular boxes only rule, and we label them using sharpie on a piece of masking tape. And loose categories for each drawer - bread products, frozen veg, batch-cooked meals, etc.

I have one like that OP, every now and then I hoick everything out, bin anything that’s unrecognisable and restock tidily, it never lasts.

Does the rectangular rule apply to only boxes? Wondering what you do if you want to freeze a leg of lamb or whole chicken?😅

Only boxes (those round tubs of Mackie's ice cream are allowed, but we don't reuse them for soup). And yes, things that are not boxes are allowed not to be rectangular! But to be honest I can't imagine that we would freeze a leg of lamb or a whole chicken - we'd buy those when we wanted to eat them. We've recently had to go from having a massive chest freezer full of crap to a fridge-freezer and separate undercounter freezer, so we've had to streamline our freezing habits.

I have just downsized from a massive chest freezer, to an integrated upright one. It's taken a complete shift in attitude to try and organise the new one (alongside cries of "this poxy tiny useless freezer").

I used to batch cook or freezer leftovers in the takeaway style plastic boxes, but I don't find that as efficient in using space in the new one.

Now, I have reusable silicone bags, where (mostly) I can put food in, flatten it out and seal it, and write on the top of the bag, what the contents are - bit like a filing cabinet.

I can store much more than my previous attempts, and it's easy to see what is in there.

Top section is veggie stuff for when my son visits

Next is bags of frozen veg/fruit and ice creams

Then the section with my home frozen stuff.

And the bottom is for bread/rolls (I used to buy and freeze half a dozen loaves at a time - can only really do one now).

I still REALLY miss my big chest freezer though

We have 2 freezers, one is in the garage and is for overflow/duplicates only (DH has a yellow sticker shopping habit so we freeze a lot). I label all home made food and do a ‘stock take’ about once a month. Every so often I have to give DH a yellow sticker ban and run it down a bit otherwise we would end up with 50 pizzas and not much else as we don’t actually eat that much pizza.