HOW TO ORGANIZE A SIDE-BY-SIDE REFRIGERATOR

Regularly cleaning your fridge can help you maximize storage space, organize your kitchen and ensure a fresh environment for your food by clearing out unwanted items. To clean your side-by-side fridge, start by removing all food and removable parts, including the shelves and drawers, before wiping down the inside and outside of the appliance.

To give the exterior of your fridge a thorough clean, use a gentle cleaner like affresh^®1 to help return the shine to your stainless steel appliances. To clean the interior of your fridge, use a clean sponge or soft cloth and a mild detergent in warm water to hand-wash all surfaces and removable parts before rinsing and drying thoroughly. Be sure to give all areas of your fridge a good cleaning, from your crisper drawers to your shelves, creating a clean slate for overall refrigerator organization.

The bins situated on the interior side of your fridge doors are an ideal place for storing less perishable items like butter or soda and items with longer shelf lives. The proximity of the door also grants you easy access to the items you reach for regularly, such as condiments.

Front and center, the shelves of your side-by-side fridge are great for storing everyday, non-produce items like jarred pasta sauce, dips or containers for leftovers. To make it easier to grab the items you're looking for, you can try grouping similar foods together.

Keep in mind that there can be slight differences in temperature between fridge shelves, so it’s important to keep this mind when designating areas to store your items. In general, the lower shelves are usually a bit cooler than the upper shelves. For example, the upper shelves may be an accessible place to store items like milk or eggs while the bottom shelves are best for keeping perishable foods like meat.

Storage drawers are a particularly practical feature of side-by-side refrigerators. They provide a specialized storage environment to help keep sensitive ingredients fresh longer. Use your fridge's deli drawer for items like highly perishable meats and cheeses and crisper drawers for fruits and vegetables. 

Most side-by-side fridges come with two crisper drawers which allow you to adjust the flow of air to the bins, affecting humidity. Use a high humidity crisper drawer to keep thin-skinned fruits and vegetables fresh, like spinach, broccoli or strawberries. For thick-skinned fruits and vegetables like peppers or apples, use a low humidity crisper drawer.

Keep the freezer side of your fridge looking and feeling organized to store items from frozen berries to your family’s favorite TV dinners. When storing items in the freezer side of your fridge, line items up vertically using freezer-safe bins and storage containers so you can easily see what you have and take out what you need.

Also consider organizing freezer items by expiration date. Just as organizing the items you use the most is helpful, ensuring items that will expire sooner are more accessible in the freezer can result in less food waste and less searching and re-organizing.