Keeping your kitchen clean and organized can be a challenge, especially if you have a large family for whom you cook regularly. The kitchen is the social hub of any household. Meals are cooked, served, and consumed in the kitchen. All this activity can leave you with quite the mess on your hands.
We’re all busy, and it’s hard to keep up with all those kitchen-related chores. Here are some simple suggestions that will help you maintain a clean kitchen with little effort!
Design your kitchen around your needs
An ergonomically-designed kitchen is essential to making the maintenance of the place easier. People often talk of using a “triangular layout” for the three kitchen essentials. These are your refrigerator, garbage can, and sink. By arranging them in a triangle, moving between them is quick and efficient. Go from fridge to sink to garbage without ever missing a step!
Check out the Joseph Joseph Kitchen Sink Caddy and Organizer at Amazon
If you have the space, consider storing the trash under the sink. This opens up the room and reduces spills, and it can also keep the family dog from knocking over the bin! Pet moms and dads might want to know about the best trash can for dog owners.
Use space wisely
Not having enough space is always a problem. Keep the kitchen table at a distance from your work area, as it will only serve to obstruct your movement. You might also want to invest in some space-saving measures. An in-drawer knife block or a drawer insert for your spices keeps things organized and out of the way.
See my Totally Bamboo In-Drawer Knife Block review here.
Even small kitchens have more space than we think. It’s just that it’s hard to efficiently utilize all of it. There are a ton of super handy products on the market that can make use of wasted vertical space.
Check out the DecoBros Kitchen Houseware Organizer Pantry Rack at Amazon
Invest in a few racks for the pantry and cupboards, or make them yourself as a fun DIY project!
Check out the DecoBros Pan Organizer Rack at Amazon
Keep your drawers looking fresh and tidy with the best drawer liners for the kitchen!
Develop good kitchen habits
A good general habit to form is to pick things up as you go. Don’t leave it until you’re done cooking. By the end of it all, you’ll only have a bigger mess to clean. The same advice applies to your dishes.
If you have a baby at home, you’ll need to wash his or her supplies with the best dish soap for baby bottles.
Cooking more slowly and being more deliberate in your chopping and measuring is an effective way of keeping things organized and clean. You’ll have less waste to clean up at the end, and you’ll be more inclined to clean up the smaller messes as you go.
Learn how to keep kitchen towels smelling great and stain-free.
Keep your surface cleaners on hand. If you have a surface cleaner alongside the stove, you’re more likely to give it a quick spray and wipe as it’s needed, rather than leaving it all to the end. This will keep grease build-ups to a minimum and ultimately make for lighter work.
Find out which paper towels will help reduce waste!
Cool tricks for maintaining a tidy kitchen
Here are some nifty extra tips on maintaining a clean and organized kitchen space.
Use a garbage bowl. Keep a bowl or bucket on the countertop while you work. It’s much easier than making frequent trips across the kitchen to the garbage can or compost heap. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without one!
Keep the trash can nearby. Move your trash can to where you’re working. If you’re cooking a big meal or baking, you’re going to have a lot of waste. Moving the trash can closer to you saves you the effort of toing and froing between the counter and bin. This is pretty much the same concept as the garbage bowl, but bigger.
See the best trash cans for dog owners.
Spoon cups. Do you always seem to end up with a huge pile of kitchen utensils in the sink when you’re cooking? Keep your measuring spoons in a cup of water on the counter. This will clean them sufficiently so that you don’t need to wash them over and over again during the cooking process. Or, if you have a spoon used for margarine, keep it in a separate cup. Likewise with a spoon used for salt, sugar, etc. You can then just reuse the “margarine spoon,” the “sugar spoon,” and so on.
Funnels for effortless pouring. Line your cutting board with a flexible mat. This genius technique can vastly reduce spills. Ever tried to move chopped vegetables to the pan to cook and dropped them all over the floor? If you have a flexible mat, you can curl it into a funnel to effortlessly pour your vegetables into the frying pan. No waste, no mess!
Check out the Cooler Kitchen Flexible Plastic Cutting Board Mats at Amazon
Busy people, tidy kitchens
Follow these easy steps and form the right habits for a cleaner, more efficient kitchen. It might take some time to get used to the new routine. But, once the habits are in place, you’ll be glad you developed them!
Loving the clean kitchen? Keep it up by using the best oven cleaner! You might also want to read this article on how to clean the outside of a refrigerator.
And, for clean cookware, there’s this post on the best dishwasher for spotless stainless steel pots and pans.
Bryce is not a real professor, but he's real nerdy in the kitchen. He's been barbecuing, chopping, and generally blazing food for many decades. He thinks there's definitely a better spatula or utensil out there that hasn't been invented yet.