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How to Organize Your Deep Freezer

May 22, 2017   12 Comments

If you have a deep freezer (AKA a chest freezer) it is important to organize it.

How to Organize Your Deep Freezer

As you can see from the photo above, my freezer was a mess and I couldn’t find anything (which led me to try to figure out the best way to use it).

My chest freezer is a GE 7.0 cubic feet chest freezer and it costs about $230.00. The freezer is incredibly energy efficient if you keep it full and it saves me money.

I precook meals that I can store there and buy food when it is on sale (and store it until I want to eat it).

For example, I stock up on frozen fish because I learned how to cook salmon from frozen in December.

The upstairs freezer in the bottom of my fridge was also incredibly disorganized (see above). I lost it and finally committed to a solution. I knew that milk crates would be perfect but I wasn't going to steal any (like I did in college).

These Target crates are PERFECT for my 7.0 cubic foot freezer.

You can find these milk crate storage bins in a variety of colors and they cost a whopping $3.49. Their dimensions are 10.500 inches H x 13.625 inches W x 15.5 inches D.

I used three of them in the freezer because you can’t stack 4. There is a space for the motor that would block four crates.

After spending $11, I got to work on tossing old food and assessing what I actually have.

Now how to organize it all?

I decided to make categories:

1. Frozen fruit and vegetables
2. Meat and fish
3. Premade foods (such as frozen potstickers and my own chili)
4. Bread and staples
5. Desserts

I put the things that I use the most – frozen fruits and vegetables, and bread, and food that I was going to eat very soon – in my freezer upstairs.

Then, I got to work. One crate with meat and fish went deep into the freezer and on top all of the food that I use the most. Viola!

Now, when I want something from the bottom all I have to do is lift out a crate to get it.

Tip – I hid the desserts where I couldn’t see them every time I opened the freezer. They are tucked away on the top shelf of the upstairs freezer next to the ice. My kids can get to them – but I will (hopefully) forget that they are there (I’m thinking of you Klondike Bar).

Have you organized a deep freezer? How did you do it? What are your categories?

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12 Comments:

Terrific idea! Thanks for sharing this one! I'm on my way to Target :) I've been searching for a way to organize my freezers forever. I've used plastic grocery bags in the past to at least separate foods into groups but those are too fragile for the freezer and rip too easily. I'll most certainly give this a try. Thanks!

on May 23, 2017

Thanks! I have a chest freezer that I can never find anything in! This is a great solution - thanks!

on May 23, 2017

I did something similar to this after I discovered I had 6 bags of frozen chopped spinach!

on May 23, 2017

This is a great idea but quick question - how well has the plastic held up with the freezing? Curious to know if better to try and locate metal basket style one so they don't crack?

on May 23, 2017

Great idea, Snack Girl! You could use scaled-down (shorter) bins, or jelly roll pans, on the very top of if you still have a bit of space. Thanks for the idea!

on May 23, 2017

Thanks for the great tip, I am always struggling to find what I need in mine, Great Idea

on May 23, 2017

I use recycled shopping bags that I purchased at the dollar store. I use red bag for beef, yellow bag for poultry and a pink for pork. This has made my life a lot easier. I've been using the same bags for years.

on May 23, 2017

How would you organize an up right freezer ?

on May 25, 2017

My first thought was maybe make one shelf beef, one shelf pork and one shelf chicken. I do not have an upright freezer. Hopefully someone else can answer your question.

on May 26, 2017

To organize my upright freezer, I put all proteins (meat, chicken, fish, etc) on the top shelf,

Homemade freezer meals and store bought freezer meals on the second from the top, breads and desserts on the next lowest and veggies and fruits on the lowest. Often the fruit migrates to the bread and dessert shelf because the veggies take over ....I allow some flexibility. Frozen broth usually goes on the door with all the little bit of things like frozen nuts, herbs, salsa, etc (I like to buy the large jars of salsa and freeze half jars as I don't go through it fast enough). In the fridge freezer, the left side of the top drawer has bacon bits, and other miscellaneous stuff, the right top has bread, and desserts, the bottom right has a large zip lock of bits of cheese as well as a plastic container of "strata stuff" (lonely buns, bits of cheese,bread ends, leftovers that get made into strata every week or two), bottom left is frozen homemade tv dinners (aka "planned overs").

Makes life soooooo much easier. :)

on May 27, 2017

I have an upright freezer in my garage, as well as a side-by-side freezer/refrigerator in the kitchen.

For my upright freezer, I put desserts & seafood on the 2nd shelf, beef & freezer meals on the top, chicken on the bottom shelf, and pizza & bread in the drawer. I also do a freezer inventory to keep up with what is in my freezer and what date I froze it.

For my kitchen freezer, I tend to have breakfast,vegetables, and it's where I do the initial flash-frozen for meals & leftovers.

on May 27, 2017

We buy and butcher whole animals, rather than buying individual cuts of meat at the store... like a whole pig, 1/4 cow, 25ish chickens. My chest freezer is slightly smaller than yours so milk crates won’t work, even for just one type of meat. Right now everything is just dumped in, and is pure chaos, so I’m not really sure how to best do this. Obviously we don’t have all that meat in there at the same time, but idk how to make it flexible so it’ll work even if I have something else?

I think I would greatly benefit from a larger freezer too lmao.

on April 15, 2020

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