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How to Keep Your Pantry Low Waste (and Organised)

Keep your Pantry Low Waste | Eat Yourself Green

It’s been a hectic few months and recently I’ve been a little overwhelmed with work, side projects and hustles, this blog and more. When life gets hectic, waste is one of the things that slide back into our life the most.

As the saying goes, convenience is the mother of laziness. And when we are time deprived it gets easier to forget our good practices.

When life gets busy, having an organised pantry allowed me to prepare for my weekly meals and waste less even with time restrictions.

So today I’m sharing some tips to keep your pantry low waste and organised at all times!

How to Keep Your Pantry Low Waste (and Organised)

I like to keep my pantry organised with jars for the simple reason that you can see exactly what’s in there. No mysterious packages, hidden leftovers that were used once and then forgotten at the back of the pantry.

With emptying the contents of your grocery shopping into jars, you can keep clear vision of what you have available to you and this way you know how you can prepare for your weekly meals.

Keep your pantry always labeled. And I cannot stress this enough…otherwise you might find you SO trying to cook quinoa as if it was couscous (been there). Specially recommended for flours that might look similar.

A few options to label your pantry I recommend, is a chalk pen, which you can buy at your local stationary shop or a label maker, like this one. I use a chalk pen and prefer it to the label option as it makes it easier to switch a jar around if I need it for larger items/quantity.

I also highly recommend that you keep spare jars in hand for when you buy groceries in bulk and bring it home without having to finish something up then refilling it. I feel like this works best for my household where we often don’t make meal plans every week, so it’s hard to predict when we’ll run out of something.

Another good ideia is to always bring forward items that have been sitting for a while on the back or that you know are expiring soon. Make it your priority to use it as soon as possible.

Your pantry doesn’t have to be ‘Instagram-worthy’ (like, who cares?!) and you should definitely keep jars that you buy olives, peanut butter, jams and any other glass jars that fill fit your pantry. Another way to get new jars if you are in desperate need of new ones, is to search in op-shops (second hand shops) or on Gumtree/Facebook Marketplace (or Craiglist for those on the US).

Sometimes I head to the bulk shop without my jars, or I’m near one by chance, so I use their paper bags and come home to tip them in my jars. With the paper bags, I either take them back to refill it again or usually I use them as my ‘landfill bag’. We tend to fill one up every fortnight.

But my best tip, would be to make a note of a few meal ideas I’ll cook during the week and see what I’ll need for that. Once I have my list of ingredients, then I check back on my pantry and see what I need. That way I never buying more of the same and I have a clear view of what’s in there.

Every few months I also do a clean up in the pantry and make a cook up with everything that’s sitting for a while in the pantry and renovate the stock. It’s amazing what you can create with random pantry items.

So these are my tips to keeping your pantry low waste and organised:

Keep dry items in jars so you can see the contents clearly
Keep older items in front so they are more accessible to use earlier
Reuse jars from items you buy, like passatas, olives, jams, sauces, etc…
Or buy second hand
Label your jars
Plan your meals around the food you have in stock so nothing stays old and you don’t over buy