Although my family eats mainly fresh vegetables, we still need to keep cans of beans, quick sauces and condiments available for nights when we are pinched for time. Thank goodness that there are several wonderful ways to organize our caned goods! My three favorite solutions are shown below with the pluses and minuses listed.

Favorite #1 The Extra Large Lazy Susan

I love this organizer! It not only holds massive amounts of cans, it also organizes the pantry areas that become dark and deep black holes. So, instead of piling cans or boxes in front of one another, simply stack and spin until you find what you need. These organizers are a little pricey ($25 + each) but they are worth their price in gold. I currently have over 35 cans on one and loved it so much that I added a second one on the shelf below!

The minus ~ if you do not have a deep dark recessed hole in your pantry, this is not for you, The smaller lazy susan is great for condiment bottles but this boehemoth only works in areas 25″ or larger.

Second Runner Up ~ The Can Stacker Shelf

This organizer makes you feel really efficient and official. Once this shelf is in place within your pantry, all cans are visible and accounted for just like in the grocery. These shelves expand and contract to fit the length of the shelf at hand.

The Minus ~ Make sure to buy the extra large shelves, the others will hold only small spice bottles or micro-sized cans.

Third Place Contender ~ The Drop-Down Wire Organizer

After using this ditty for a year or so, I determined that it was only useful for items that I use repetitively and buy in mass. For me, this means my favorite Mexican sauce (for everything) El Pato, and my cat food. Items are organized behind each other and it is designed to roll the next one forward after the first one is used.

The Minus ~ It takes up too much shelf space unless you have a large quantity of the same items that you use over and over. As you can see in this photo, this was the beginning of my experience and my cans were not necessarily as organized as I had hoped. The size was a bit wonky so I even ended up storing packaged goods along with the cans. Not the best solution! Once I began using it strictly for my cat food and El Pato collection, it became more user friendly.

We Want Your Ideas!

Please let us know if you have created any other solutions for organizing  your canned goods or your pantry. All ideas are welcome here at addSpace. The more minds that ponder a problem, the greater the results. Go ahead and take a moment to post your solutions below so others can learn from you as well!

Situation:

An incredibly large pantry with built-in shelves and drawers but a very industrious and busy cook. It seemed to have a life of it’s own and created it’s own systems if we didn’t keep an eye open for small hands and hungry mouths!

Challenge:

There were so many shelves and drawers that it looked deceptively easy to organize. This is a common situation with too much space in pantries, closets or other areas in your home. Because of the expanse of storage space, you keep buying more and more products to fill it up. Sound familiar? This actually wasn’t the issue in this pantry but a good thing to keep in mind if you have a large but out-of-control storage area.

Solutions:

We decided what zones were really necessary to keep everything organized in this space. Zones were super important since this was a very busy mom with a multi-cultural family with a variety of palettes.

Specific zones were created to include:

1. Condiments, Sauces

2. Asian Cuisine

3. Canned Goods: Soups, Veggies

4. Canned Goods: Mexican

5. Baking / Entertaining Zone

6. Rice/Pastas

7. Teas / Beverages

8. Snack Zone

9. Breakfast Zone

These are the zones created specifically for foods. After that we created storage for appliances and other items to include:

1. Entertaining  2. Baking  3. Cooking  4. Paper Goods

Click here to see more specific solutions for storage and zone organizing for pantries. I use these solutions frequently when I work in with clients and you might end up with some new ideas for your own pantry!

PS Please post any good solutions you have developed on your own in the comment form below so that others can benefit from your clever tips and tricks!