Chest Freezer Organization Tip

I have a chest freezer organization tip that will save your sanity and maybe some money in the long run too.

If you own a chest freezer, you know they are a pain to organize. By pain, I mean there is probably food at the bottom of your chest freezer that you haven’t seen in YEARS.

It’s as if someone said, “I’ve got a great idea! Let’s haphazardly throw all of our food into a frozen pit that is so large that we have to bend ourselves in half to reach the mystery meat we stored at the bottom while hoping the lid for this frozen pit doesn’t fall on our heads giving us a concussion. It will be amazing!”

Spoiler. It was not amazing.

There must be a better way to organize this frozen hellscape, I mean, chest freezer.

Here’s what I came up with.

Our chest freezer came with one wire hanging basket (above center) that rested on the top ledge of the freezer above the giant freezer cavity.

I recently discovered you can buy hanging baskets in a similar style that are designed specifically for chest freezers. These baskets are expandable so they can fit different sizes of chest freezers.

Hallelujah!

I now have triple the amount of storage along the top of our chest freezer. This is where I put our most frequently consumed items like freezer jam and bacon. What can I say? We like breakfast.

One problem solved, but there was still all of the wasted space below the hanging baskets. The organization trick here would be to make use of the vertical space without food becoming lost at the bottom.

I found inexpensive stackable plastic bins from Target that did not have a lid. It’s hard to find baskets or bins that stack without a lid.

Four of those particular stackable bins fit in the bottom of my freezer.

I was able to group like items in each bin. I have two bins for fruit and vegetables and two bins for meat. This helps me quickly find what I’m looking for and also helps me to determine if I’m running low on a particular item.

Compared to the freezer diving I was doing before I organized our chest freezer, it is SO easy to lift out the top bins to reach the food I’ve stored in the bottom bins.

I don’t want to oversell this solution. It hasn’t solved ALL my life problems. However, I no longer dread opening this freezer to pull out food for dinner.

Now I just dread making dinner. Ha!

Can I cram as much food in the chest freezer now that it is organized?

Probably not.

However, I’m not wasting food because it got freezer burnt or buying food we don’t need because I didn’t realize we already had those same items hiding in the depths of the freezer. This organization system is making food shopping and meal planning a little bit easier.

Plus, it has reduced my aggravation levels immensely when it comes to dealing with the chest freezer. That alone was worth it.

What do you think of my chest freezer organization? Do you have a chest freezer? Is it a pain point for you too? I’d love to know. You can always comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Happy organizing!

Baskets I used to organize our chest freezer:

expandable hanging basket (measure your freezer to make sure it fits)

stackable plastic bins without a lid (again, measure to make sure they fit)

P.S. We have a chest freezer because, at the time, it was the right price point, it was relatively lightweight, and we could maneuver it down our basement stairs more easily than an upright freezer.

If circumstances were different, I would prefer an upright freezer over a chest freezer.

P.P.S. Yes, I put glass jars of freezer jam in the freezer. You do have to be careful to allow the contents room to expand. Basically, don’t fill the jars to the top. That said, I’ve never had a jar break in all the years that I’ve put glass jars in the freezer. (Let’s hope I didn’t just jinx myself.)

Thanks for being here today. I enjoy sharing ideas with you. If you have more time, I have another blog post for you to read.

Jewelry Organizer From An Old Door

5 Kitchen Organization Strategies I Use Wherever We Move

One Touch Cleaning Rule

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