Organize These Kitchen Essentials Before Thanksgiving For A Clutter-Free Space

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Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year for many people as it is associated with family, friends, laughter, and food. The latter in particular is a huge part for this holiday, and the organizing and prepping involved can take up a huge amount of your time and space. But it can sometimes be daunting to figure out exactly what you need to do to prep your home to host the perfect Thanksgiving. You will likely have considered your shopping list and the cooking implements needed to pull off this annual meal, but there is one key aspect of the day — and the days that come after — that you could be forgetting: the containers.

It has been reported that Thanksgiving has resulted in over 300 million pounds of wasted food across the nation in recent years. To stop this, and to make clean up easier for yourself, having a good set of food containers is absolutely essential. While many of us can confidently say that we have an entire cupboard or drawer dedicated to these receptacles, how many of them are actually usable? From cracked lids to ill-matched sets, more of your containers may be out of commission than you realize. So, save yourself the stress and conduct an overhaul of your food container cupboard, organizing the essentials and throwing away the excess, to keep the kitchen clean this Thanksgiving.

The first thing to do to make sure your kitchen is prepped for the coming holiday is to take stock. Remove all your existing containers from their hiding places, even the small ones as they will likely be needed for leftover sauces, and lay them out. Check which pieces are usable, have a matching lid, and are likely to withstand a decent amount of food. Then, throw out the rest. This may be difficult, but it can help make finding the good containers much less stressful. If you find that your collection is too small afterwards, why not opt for an eco-friendly approach and ditch the plastic food containers altogether? Instead, you can grab yourself some new glass ones such as these BAYZZ Glass Meal Prep Containers with Lids. Having a set of glass food containers means you will rely less on single-use plastic while still being able to achieve a clutter-free Thanksgiving due to their durable design and matching lids.

After you've whittled down your stash and restocked with more up-to-date pieces, you will want to re-organize them so that packing your Thanksgiving leftovers will be quick and simple on the day. If your lids tend to slide around in the cabinet, you could always repurpose your empty ice cream tubs to slot the lids in vertically and keep them in place. As a bonus, placing the lids in their own area will allow you to stack the containers and will prevent moisture from building up inside. For extra ease, you could also consider placing your containers on a pull-out shelf, saving you having to dig around in the back of the cabinet while your guests are waiting to take home leftovers.