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Spring Clean and Organize Your Refrigerator

by christine satterfield 10 Comments

spring cleaning the refrigerator

Spring Clean and Organize Your Refrigerator

You may open up kitchen cabinets a couple times a day, but the refrigerator is a different story. It seems like the fridge is opened ten times an hour (at least in my house!). Looking for something to eat in a messy refrigerator can put a damper on your tastebuds. But a clean fridge, that’s a different story!

When you can clearly see fresh fruit and vegetables in your fridge, those healthy options are less likely to waste away in the back. When you can easily find ingredients, cooking is less of a chore. So today, let’s clean up that refrigerator!

Clean and organize the refrigerator:

  • Take everything out of the refrigerator…even food and condiments in the drawers and doors. Trash anything that has spoiled. Condense containers when possible.
  • Wipe down shelving and walls of your refrigerator with an all-purpose cleaner (*see note about this below).
  • Determine if rearranging the shelving would make your fridge more functional. I adjusted our refrigerator shelves recently and it made a huge difference!
  • Replace food categorically. Try to keep fruits and veggies together, drinks on one shelf, leftovers in the same area, etc.
  • Wipe down the outside of your fridge if you have time.

*How to clean refrigerator shelves quickly and easily.

Here’s the deal. I buy most of our meat, fruits and veggies from a weekly CSA and I mostly cook from scratch. Since switching to fresh fruits and vegetables our fridge is a disaster zone. Onion skins easily fall off. Leafy greens leave pieces behind. Defrosting meat in the refrigerator will leave pools of liquid on the shelves (even when in a bowl).

I clean the refrigerator on a regular basis but it gets dirty in a hurry.

The easiest way to clean a refrigerator...seriously great idea!

The easiest way I’ve found to clean refrigerator shelves is to put the removable shelving in the bathtub to clean. 

Now let me preface this by saying we have two bathrooms and we only use one. So, this bathtub is uber clean.

All I do is run a bit of cold water, squeeze some dish liquid in, and scrub away. After cleaning one piece, I dry and then install back in the fridge. Then repeat.

It’s extremely efficient, especially when compared to washing them in a small(ish) kitchen sink.

If your fridge needs some scrubbing instead of just wiping down, give it a whirl in the bathtub. It took me less than 15 minutes start to finish!

Your assignment for today:

  • Continue working on habit #2.
  • Clean and organize your refrigerator.
  • Keep working on your cleaning schedule.

Check in on the Spring Cleaning 365 accountability group, in the comment section here, or on Facebook when you finish!! 

Filed Under: Spring Cleaning 365 Daily Task Tagged With: fridge, Kitchen, organization, refrigerator

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Comments

  1. allyall says

    February 8, 2013 at 10:12 AM

    Correct link: http://springcleaning365.com/clean-and-organize-the-refrigerator/

    Reply
  2. Cassie says

    February 8, 2013 at 10:44 AM

    Your fridge cleaning link doesn’t go back to the original fridge cleaning post.

    Reply
    • Spring Cleaning 365 says

      February 9, 2013 at 11:02 PM

      I’m so sorry!! It’s fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.

      Reply
  3. Bette Wolf says

    February 9, 2013 at 1:34 AM

    Mine’s still looking pretty fantastic from a combination of last month’s scrub, and the weekly clean-up I’ve been doing. I made some more wonderful progress on habit #1, though!

    Reply
    • Spring Cleaning 365 says

      February 9, 2013 at 11:01 PM

      Awesome!! Great job!

      Reply
  4. Tiffany F. says

    February 11, 2013 at 10:11 AM

    When I cleaned my fridge, I had a garbage bag full to get rid of. I was SO embarrassed and ashamed that I have kept track of things we need to buy so I am not bringing in and opening unnecessary items. Nobody needs to have 6 BBQ sauce open at one time!!! I have incorporated cleaning the fridge into my routine 2 days a week (quick wipe down, check dates, deal with leftovers.) it has led to less waste and a clean fridge all the time!!
    Great website- just found it and I’m really enjoying all of you tips!!

    Reply
  5. Kim says

    March 16, 2014 at 11:15 PM

    Done.

    Reply
  6. Stephie Smith says

    August 7, 2015 at 12:18 PM

    Oh, goodness! I never even thought of filling my bathtub with soap water. That really would be the easiest way to clean everything in one go. Once I finish moving and sorting the food around and finding better storage solutions, I’ll have to do a deep cleaning. Thanks for sharing such a helpful post!

    Reply

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