If you’ve had lots of food bowls in your possession, you’ve probably found yourself frustrated by the growing collection of lidless bowls in your kitchen. Many of us end up with these orphaned containers after their lids break, get lost, or are chewed up by pets.
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Thankfully, there’s a way out. Instead of tossing them or letting them clutter your kitchen, there’s a genius hack to keep them useful when their lids go missing. Keep reading to find out.
Lidless Containers With Nothing to Do With Them
So, you’ve gotten new sets of containers to store your grains or seasoning or pack food for picnics. You use them for a while, but slowly, a lid goes missing, and then the next. To your surprise, all the containers you bought in the past months now have no lids, and this goes for every new set you bring in.
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So, what you have is a pack of containers you can’t use because they have no lids. Somehow, you never get around to thrashing them because you think you’ll find the lids someday…
Sometimes They Show Up, Other Times, They Don’t
On some days, you find some lids in the corner of your kitchen and in shelves. Other times, you just don’t. It’s always a back-and-forth of whether or not you’ll find the missing lids. Even the lids you find still go missing after some time.
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But you keep hoping you find them around, so you keep the containers.
Clutter Accumulates Quickly
As you stack up one container after the other, hoping that one day you’ll find their missing lids, you slowly begin to build up clutter. You’ve now amassed so many containers that they’ve taken up the space you need to keep kitchen essentials.
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You have boxes filled with containers waiting to be used or trashed. Your shelves are stocked with containers, consuming the space for items you really need.
The Solution…
Piling up lidless containers is a norm for most people. You are stuck between trashing them or using them, so you just leave them there.
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But there’s good news—you can finally put your lidless containers to use by turning them into storage bins in your fridge and pantry.
Decanting- The Way to Go!
Just as you have many containers with no lids, you probably have food stuff and bite-sized kitchen items in the wrong storage boxes. They may also be lying around without proper storage.
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This is where decanting with lidless containers comes in. Transfer the grains, seasoning, fruits, and small kitchen utensils from storage boxes that don’t fit into suitable lidless containers!
Create Zones in Your Fridge
Lidless containers help you organize your fridge by type of food. You can set up different areas, such as one for dairy, one for fruits, and another for veggies. This way, everything has its own spot, and you can see and grab what you need quickly.
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As a result, it keeps your fridge tidy and prevents you from buying the same things over and over because you can see what is already there. Plus, it makes lunches and cooking faster since everything is right where it should be.
Label Your Items
Bring some order into the storage process by labeling the containers, especially for those in the pantry. If you’ve stored salt or seasoning, label them on the containers to avoid confusion.
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You can label the containers in the fridge “leftovers” or “fresh” and label containers in the pantry based on the items in them. They could range from “oats” to “parsley,” “mint tea” etc. You can write them with markers or plain sheets and change them when you’ve exhausted the items in the storage containers.
See What’s in Your Fridge and Pantry at A Glance
Using clear containers lets you see everything you have without disorganizing your fridge and pantry. You won’t have to dig around to find ingredients, saving time.
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It’s also super easy to keep an eye on what’s in your fridge and pantry. You’ll use what you have before it goes bad, cutting down waste.
Avoid Buying What You Don’t Need
Organizing your fridge and pantry with containers prevents you from buying what you already have. This is particularly helpful for items you don’t use regularly.
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Since everything is visible, you can plan your grocery list and trips efficiently to avoid purchasing items you already have at home.
So Much to Do with Lidless Containers…
Depending on their shapes and sizes, lidless containers can be used for so many things around your home. Rectangular containers are great for keeping small notebooks, such as to-do or to-buy lists and cookbooks.
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Round containers also work well for separating items on a turntable. For example, rather than placing them in the same box, you can have a container for pepper mint and another one with almond extracts.
Your Orpan Items Now Have A Home!
When you follow this hack, lidless containers can finally house items that often get lost in your kitchen. Now, you can store easy-to-lose items like cupcake toppers, rubber bands, tea bags, etc.
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This hack ensures that tiny items are no longer scattered throughout your drawers and shelves. It also organizes your kitchen and makes your essentials easily accessible.
