The Best Way To Fold Kitchen Towels If You Have Shallow Drawers

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Are your kitchen towels crammed into a drawer that barely shuts? Whether you've got a tiny kitchen with limited storage or a huge one with tons of cabinets and drawers filled to the brim, learning how to fold your kitchen towels neatly is worth the effort for a variety of reasons. Sure, tidy drawers look nicer, and when you're up to your elbows in soapy dishwater it's easier to grab a single folded towel than to pull one out of a crumpled pile. But folding your towels also keeps them fresher for longer, because they're less likely to pick up dust, crumbs, or food particles when stored in a breathable yet confined drawer. According to Jill Koch, creator of the cleaning and lifestyle brand Jill Comes Clean, rolling or layering is the ideal folding method for kitchen towels if you have shallow drawers.

During her exclusive interview with House Digest, Koch agreed that shallow drawers present a challenge for kitchen towel storage. "It really comes down to how thick the towel is and also how it is folded or stored," she explained. Unlike the cleaning expert, most of us aren't giving enough thought or attention to the task of sanitizing and storing our kitchen towels. But research published in Food Protection Trends showed that the vast majority of kitchen hand towels in households across the U.S. and Canada harbor germs and bacteria that can lead to potentially harmful cross-contamination. Using Koch's folding methods won't only make your small kitchen feel more spacious and serene. Combined with frequent washing, her approach can also help make your kitchen routine safer.

Whether you just dry off a few plates after chowing down on some takeout, or you spend as long on your pots and pans as you do preparing gourmet meals, cleaning your kitchen towels is the first step to getting the crumpled and chaotic mess under control. Then, "there are two ways you can fold kitchen towels for a shallow drawer," Jill Koch told House Digest during her exclusive interview. "The first is to file fold them and the second is to roll them."

To file fold your kitchen towels, Koch recommends laying the towel flat with the long side horizontal in front of you. "Fold it in half lengthwise ... Bring the bottom edge up to the top edge, creating a long skinny rectangle," she suggested. Then, you'll fold it in half from left to right before folding it into thirds or quarters. "Like folding a letter," the cleaning expert said, adding that you'll need to use your best judgement about the number of folds depending on the size of your towel and depth of your drawer.

To roll your kitchen towels, Koch said to start by laying each one flat with the long edge facing you before folding the towel in thirds lengthwise. "Bring the bottom edge up to the top edge to make a long rectangle," she said. "Depending on the towel size this may be enough and you can roll from one end to the other." For particularly long towels, you may need to fold it in half before rolling. For the longest lasting and tidiest looking results, the cleaning expert recommended "[rolling] it up firmly, like a cinnamon roll, keeping it snug as you go."

Once you've thoroughly washed, dried, and folded your towels, it's time to store them. "These methods allow you to condense the towel as much as possible and maximize the space in a way that allows you to see all of the towels versus keeping them flat and stacking on top of each other," Jill Koch said during her exclusive interview with House Digest. The cleaning expert recommends standing file folded towels one in front of the other, like you would in a file cabinet. But she admitted that can be tricky in smaller spaces. "What I like to do for my shallow drawers when file folding is to lay them in a way where each one slightly overlaps the one behind it ... If rolling kitchen towels then I simply line them up one behind the other," she said.

Koch said using drawer dividers can make organizing your home a breeze. "I like the bamboo dividers the best and many are spring loaded at one end to fit a variety of drawer depths," she explained. "Dividers not only make the drawer look more tidy and organized but they help keep the towels in place and prevent them from sliding around in the drawer." Consider products like the Utoplike Spring Loaded Bamboo Kitchen Drawer Dividers, which come in several different colors and adjust to perfectly fit a variety of kitchen drawer sizes. Koch recommended dividers if you need to store multiple items in a single drawer, like towels, dishcloths, and sponges: "This gives each item a home and keeps the drawer tidy."