Tips & Tricks To Organize Cookware In Kitchen Cabinets

The large, beautiful, and perfectly organized kitchens in Architectural Digest's house tours of popular celebrities might seem attainable only via a screen. After all, not everyone is blessed with a premium kitchen with tons of space for cabinets. But instead of wondering if you'll ever get the kitchen of your dreams, why not employ a few tips and tricks to maximize your existing space and do away with the clutter on your countertops? There are several ways you can go about organizing your cookware, even if you're attached to the good 'ole stacking them and digging through the cabinets method. For instance, shelf risers, expandable shelves, and pan racks will bring order to your chaotic cabinets.

Similarly, housing your rarely-used cookware, like the large pot reserved for preparing a feast on Thanksgiving, in the highest, hardest-to-reach kitchen cabinets is a good call. This simple trick will free up space in your easy-to-reach cabinets for your everyday pots and pans while minimizing visual clutter. To organize your kitchen cabinets like Marie Kondo, declutter your cookware. Bring out all the pots and pans you own and do away with the chipped and wonky pieces that no longer serve a purpose. You also want to get rid of the just-because pieces and the duplicates to make room for the pieces you actually use. Donate them or sell the items that are in relatively good shape. Then, find out the best ways to organize the remaining cookware.

After you declutter your cookware collection and are left with only the pieces that are an integral part of your cooking, it's time to organize them in cabinets. First, clean your kitchen cabinets, then look at the number of pans and pots you have and determine if your dedicated cookware cabinet will offer more space vertically or horizontally. To illustrate, a vertical pan rack is a good option for cabinets that are tall. Cuisinel's 12.2-inch, five-tier heavy-duty organizer is available on Amazon for about $25. Place the lids on upside down to keep the knobs from getting in the way. On the other hand, a wide but short cabinet will benefit from a horizontal pot organizer. MUDEELA's 10-compartment adjustable organizer retails for under $24 on Amazon. Such organizers can also come in handy for your baking dishes, sheets, pan and pot lids, trays, and molds.

If you're blessed both vertically and horizontally, invest in a dual-sided organizer to get the best of both worlds. ORDORA's eight-tier adjustable pan organizer rack costs about $30 on Amazon. Expandable racks are another great option if you want to house a mix of pans and pots in a single cabinet without dealing with a towering stack of cookware. We recommend Smart Design's scratch-resistant 16 x 32.5-inch expandable shelf rack that's retailing on Amazon for under $13. Pull-out cabinet organizers, like Kitstorack's $54 expandable organizer on Amazon, will also help you maximize available storage space.

Although pan organizers and expandable shelves are great tools for organizing your cookware in cabinets, they do take up a lot of space and limit the number of items you can safely store. So, it stands to reason that you'd still want to stack the pans and pots, especially if you have a small kitchen and are short on space. Group items based on their material or usage and stack them inside one another. That being said, don't overcrowd the stacks in your enthusiasm. Though the neat stacks will look nice, it'll be a time- and effort-consuming task to pull out a pan or pot from a large stack, irrespective of its position. Plus, haphazard placement could lead to unwarranted accidents.

While stainless steel cookware can be quickly organized this way, insert a towel or three to four coffee filters between each non-stick pan to protect the coating. Regarding organizing all your pot lids and baking trays, purchase a dish organizer rack. We like Cuisinel's seven-tier lid and dish organizer rack. A pack of two costs about $21 on Amazon. Dedicated cabinet dividers can help, too. Or, use tension rods to lay down boundaries. If none of these options sound good, use command hooks to hang the lids on the back of the cabinet door.