How To Simplify Food Storage

November 13, 2024 - By Dorothy

This post is about how to make food storage as easy and frustration-free as possible, including how to reduce waste from leftovers. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links that if a purchase occurs through these links at no greater cost to you I might earn a commission.

Ever think you’re going to completely lose it when you cannot find the lid to the Tupperware container you just poured your leftovers into?

I’ve been there.

It’s small annoyances like these that I don’t have time for. With a two- and a one-year-old, I’m just trying my best to keep the house clean and fresh, nutritious meals on the table. I can’t lose my sanity over a lost Tupperware lid. I need my every ounce of my sanity for parenting my wonderful children.

If you’ve felt the same frustration I just described, take this as your sign to do a clean sweep of your random Tupperware lids and containers, and get yourself one big set of the same type of Tupperware. It’s sometimes a bit to swallow at first because if you’re like me and you’re trying to be a stay-at-home mom and leave your corporate job, you really start to consider every purchase since staying home with the kids usually comes at a price. So if buying a new set of food storage containers is not in your budget at this time, I feel you. But if you’re ready and able, check out the rest of this post or save it for later.

For the budget-conscious

If you’re in the just-need-to-make-it-work-for-now stage, then what I suggest is to….

Clear out all your food storage containers
Make sure each of them has a matching top and bottom
Toss what doesn’t have a lid
Organize it back into the pantry

You can use a storage bin or even a large Tupperware container to store all the lids. Then, you can stack your containers together so you can fit them all nicely in your cabinet and then you can shuffle through the bin for the matching lid. It saves you from the lid slipping out of the cabinet when you pull a container out.

You can also wait for sales on a set you like. Don’t forget about Black Friday sales and other deals! Find a set you like and wait for that bad boy to go on sale.

For the budget-ready

This is definitely the fun part (at least it is for me and my nerdy Googling self) to look at styles, colors, and sizes of different food storage sets. I married my husband 7 years ago, and when we were registering for all our household essentials, I knew this food storage set was making the list. My mom was victim to the random Tupperware conundrum. So, when I was planning our household I told myself I am NOT suffering with endless, awful Tupperware. So I registered for a few sets of Pyrex to which thankfully I was gifted. In fact, someone at my bridal shower said, “what’s she going to do with ALL that Pyrex?” Well, USE it, naturally!

*Many of my containers were in the fridge being used for leftovers, so this is not my full collection*

So, here I am, seven years later, still loving and using my Pyrex HARD. I’ve used it so much and it lasted so well that I’m just now replacing a few lids that cracked on the edges. But the glass part of the storage containers have all remained intact. I have no regrets about going all-Pyrex for my food storage!

Once you have all the same food storage containers, it makes life just *that* much easier. But, let’s take it a step further. Let’s introduce LABELING your food storage for easier use and organization.

Now, the MAIN REASON I label my food is because I’m super finicky about how old food is. I tend to throw away food probably too early for most people, because lunches growing up was either eating too-old-food for lunch or nothing at all. I tended to skip lunch for that reason. So, since I had my own house and my own rules, I decided to institute a strict “label your food” policy. So I date my leftovers. Otherwise, I’m definitely throwing it away, probably too soon and wasting it entirely (again, my childhood).

I will never stop loving and sharing about these labels for my Pyrex food storage containers.

They’re just THAT nice. And they’re the secret sauce to organizing my food storage when it comes to leftovers or meal-prepping.

I’ve used these labels on my Pyrex containers for at least five years now, and wow, they hold up SO WELL.

Literally, I don’t have to worry about the labels peeling off of my containers in the dishwasher they just stay on so perfectly well! Only one of my labels looks like it slightly melted at the edges (from my dishwasher), but I seriously just toss my Pyrex containers in the dishwasher like you would any glass item. I don’t have to keep these containers with these labels on the top shelf of of the dishwasher, they can go on the bottom and those labels STILL won’t budge!

To make USING the labels easier, I keep my ultra-fine tip dry erase marker in this little leather magnetic marker holder on the side of my fridge so that it makes it easy for me to grab the marker and write the date on the leftovers before they go in the fridge. If you have to go searching for a marker every time you label your containers, you are really going to struggle to follow through with labeling your food regularly. So make it easier on yourself, and find a way to keep a dry-erase marker nearby.

Anything that says “hand-wash only” I’m like, ‘hmmmm, yeah, lemme just try the dishwasher because I am not about that hand-washing life.’ So I’ve tested it out for you and you don’t have to worry about the dishwasher with these labels! The labels stay on perfect!

When I installed the labels, I wiped an area of my Pyrex containers with some rubbing alcohol and let it try completely (a few seconds) so that the labels stay on so well.

The only issue is, these labels did not stay on the plastic Pyrex lids. So I don’t know how well these labels would hold up on a plastic Tupperware container. But, on my glass Pyrex dishes, *muah*. They stay on FANTASTIC. Not a single one has come off of my glass Pyrex containers, and I’m not delicate with those containers either.

And I use a dry-erase marker on these labels, any dry-erase marker will do in my opinion, but here are the ultra-fine tip dry erase markers I use and like for both my lovely acrylic wall calendar and these labeled containers. (Click Here to read my blog post on how I organize our family schedules using this wall calendar!)

I like to simply label the date of my leftovers on these labels, but I’ve also labeled my husband or my kids’ names on containers if I prepped a specific container of food for them. You know when someone takes your leftovers to work when you were wanting them? Yeah, that’s why I label things.

Speaking of labeling things, I like to keep my lids in these small baskets so they’re easy to find/grab, but I also like to take it a step further and label the bins so that we know where each size of lid is. This has made doing dishes between me and my husband easier, because I had a system in my head of where each lid goes, but my husband was unaware of my unspoken rules and it was fair game for the placement of each lid. It drove me crazy. So I labeled the baskets and there we go! Easier storage and organization. I don’t recall where I got the baskets from, but they fit perfectly in my cabinet. you’d have to do some researching to find a basket that fits in your cabinet but also is the appropriate size for your container lids. Hey, one of my “baskets” is a rogue Tupperware container that didn’t have a lid, so I kept it to store a few tiny containers and canning rings/lids.

Here are the hanging labels I use. I use this in my freezer, on my wire shelves in my basement, and on some baskets on my kids’ changing table. So I’ve found multiple uses for these hanging labels!

In summary, finding a food storage that we liked using (I don’t want my husband reheating his leftovers in plastic containers day after day, IYKYK) and labeling everything made our life so easy. You’ll find a lot of food topics on my blog because we all need to eat, multiple times a day, so never underestimate the power of making something you do multiple times a day simpler and easier!