Never Look For A Lid Again: The Storage Container Hack We All Need To Hear

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Have you ever been assaulted by an avalanche of plastic tumbling from your kitchen cabinets? If the answer is yes, this article is for you. What's a bigger bug bear in this day and age than the plague of cluttered reusable storage container lids? You know what we mean: containers without lids, lids without containers, one rogue circle that fits absolutely nothing and yet somehow refuses to disappear, and so on. The issue isn't that you don't have enough storage containers. The problem is that none of them seem to match, which is strange because you're quite sure they did when you bought them. The simplest fix for this problem is also the most obvious and perhaps least exciting — buy reusable containers with the same size lids, just in depths.

It's time to say goodbye to cluttered lids and hello to creative storage solutions. All you need to do is replace the puzzle pieces with key containers. Get a few 32-ounce, 16-ounce, and 8-ounce containers, all with the same-sized lid. That's it; that's the hack. Once every container fits the same lid, no matter how deep it is, there's no more confusion. You just grab the container you need based on its volume and then grab a lid. You know that lid is going to fit the container; there's no thinking twice about it. While this system sounds obvious and simple, it's surprising how many people find it novel. Bonus: The strategy frees up so much mental space.

You no longer dread opening your plastic container storage cabinet. Your lids and reusable containers live up to their promise of convenience. If they're quick and simple to use, you'll use them more. You can, for example, easily prevent food waste with a fridge organizing tip that changes the game: giving items that need to be eaten soon their own area in the fridge. No more shoving cling-filmed bowls of leftovers into the back of the fridge only to be promptly forgotten. Plus, you can ditch the complicated and sometimes pricey lid and container storage solutions — the plate racks, drawer dividers, bins, tension rods, and pegboards — in favor of simple stacking. The shared dimensions mean the containers fit neatly inside or atop one another, whether they're empty in the cupboard or full in the fridge.

Before you can try this hack at home, it's time to ditch the plastic food containers you already own. Assess their condition — anything relatively new could be given away to friends and family or donated to your local thrift store (if they were used for dry goods). If the containers are looking worse for wear, you may be able to recycle them. Check the bases for the plastic recycling numbers: #1 and #2 are the most widely accepted. Next, you need to invest in containers of varying heights and depths but with a single-sized lid. We like, for instance, this set of 34-, 24-, and 17-ounce BiuLeon BPA-Free Freezer Storage Containers with 4.4-inch twist-top lids for about $15. You'll never have to play the world's most frustrating game of container lid matching again.