Clean and Organize Your Fridge

   Most of you are probably scratching your head wondering "why in the world someone create a tutorial on how to clean and organize a fridge?!" Well, obviously we all know how to clean, but choosing a cleaner safe for your fridge and food to be exposed to can be questionable. Organization? I think we all have our own version of "organized". I thought my fridge was pretty clean and somewhat organized until 2 days ago when I opened it and the foulest smell ever hit me right in the face. Ok... time to get this baby clean.

Fridge Before. 

•  Start by turning up the setting for the fridge. If it's at 3, turn it up to 4 or 5. While cleaning, the door is going to be open for awhile. You don't want the inside temperature to get warm because when we're all done cleaning you wouldn't want to put your food in a warm fridge.
•  While clearing out the fridge, immediately toss anything that's moldy, expired or questionable. When moldy food sits with fresh food, the toxins and gasses released make fresh food spoil faster. Luckily, we have 2 fridges. One is a traditional German fridge that is tiny, like the size of a dorm fridge. It's built in our cabinets and even looks like another cabinet. I put all the food in there until I'm done cleaning. If you don't have an extra fridge, try and put the food near a cold window or ground together to stay cold.
•  Take out the racks, drawers and shelves. Our German kitchen sink is tiny (only 9 inches deep) so I put mine into the bathtub. Usually I will use baking soda or vinegar to clean, but my fridge drawers had some sticky stains so I used Dawn dishsoap and a scrub brush. Once everything's been scrubbed and clean, rinse them off thoroughly with warm water then set them on a clean towel to air dry.

Cleaning the drawers with some good ol' Dawn and soft scrub brush.

•  Now that the fridge is totally empty, start cleaning the interior. I used a quarter cup baking soda and about 6 cups hot water because it's one of the most gentle cleaner that's safe to use.
•  By now your drawers, shelves and racks should be dry. Put them back into the fridge. This might sound silly, but I used some Press N' Seal on the bottom drawer to protect the glass from spills and scratched. That way if it's gets dirty I can just peel it off. 

Clean and ready to be filled again.

• Now that you're ready to put your food back in, grab a clean hot washrag and wipe down all of your condiment bottles and various jars so things won't get sticky and stained again.
• I tend to toss things in the fridge as I unload groceries and never return to them, so perfectly good food gets shoved in the back and spoils. I'm going to use plastic baskets and categorize them by type. Cold cuts and cheese goes in one basket. Most of my condiments get stored in the door and take up a lot of room, so I'm putting the tall condiments in one basket and short condiments in the small part of the door where not much else will fit. In my third basket I put dairy products like cream cheese, butter, cottage cheese, etc. in.
• Keep your fruits and veggies in the bottom drawers where it's slightly warmer. Putting produce on the racks can bruise them and dry them out.
• Eggs need to be kept in the coldest part of the fridge, and keep raw meat on the very bottom shelf so you don't risk the juice dripping on and contaminating other foods.
• Finally, put a new box of baking soda in the fridge to keep odors at bay. And guess what the stench in my fridge was? Old broccoli my husband had tupperware, clear in the back of the fridge. Barf!

All clean and organized!

  Good luck on cleaning and organizing your fridge! Do you have any helpful tips or shortcuts when it comes to staying organized? What's your LEAST favorite household chore to do? 

    

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