Key Tips For Keeping Your Kitchen Utensil Drawer Clean

Have you ever noticed that every few months or so, the kitchen utensil drawer starts to resemble the culinary family member no one wants to talk about — the junk drawer? While cleaning this space is not necessarily an everyday or even weekly maintenance task, it is still an area that you should shoot for deep cleaning and reorganizing at least twice a year. You'll need to remove all the items, wash any trays, clean inside the drawers, and sort your utensils.

Keeping the utensil drawer clean is often overlooked. While the minimum recommendation is to deep clean the drawer every six months, putting the task on your radar for a more frequent wipe down is even better. Maintaining this space matters for the same reasons we clean all the other players in the kitchen: to maintain food safety, avoid cross-contamination, reduce odors, and prevent pests. Lastly, another important reason to take the time to assess the drawer is to ensure that the cutlery stays in tip-top shape. The routine maintenance allows you to replace utensils when they are due. Further, after everything is squeaky-clean, it's the perfect opportunity to reorganize the drawer so that there's no clutter, everything has its own place, and items can be accessed easily.

The first tip for keeping your drawer clean and banishing unsightly kitchen utensil clutter is to empty everything out. This gives you the chance to start with a clear surface and sort through every item inside. Often plasticware, condiments, toys, trash, and other accoutrements land inside this drawer. What doesn't belong can be packed away or simply thrown out. While you work on the drawer itself, plastic, metal, and glass trays or organizers can be pampered in the sink with a soak in some warm soapy water. For any wooden dividers, simply wipe them with a soapy cloth. This is also a great time to soak your utensils.

Next, use a vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool or brush attachment to eliminate crumbs, dust, and other debris that take up residence in the utensil drawer. A lint brush might also help in a pinch. Then, you can disinfect the drawer with a little bit of distilled white vinegar and a clean dishrag. Wipe down the area and let the drawer air dry while you rinse the trays and organizers. Make sure that everything is completely dry before returning the pieces neatly back inside the storage area. 

The best drawer organization will have all the items you regularly use easily accessible. For the optimal kitchen cutlery storage, consider having two drawers to meet the purpose. All your eating utensils, including steak knives, chopsticks, and reusable straws, should call one drawer home. Most people tend to use cutlery organizers and have the silverware stacked up in their respective places. However, there are several other ways to organize kitchen flatware, like with an expandable shelf, short basket, or jars.

Now, the second drawer can house your bulkier items. Those pieces would be things like hand graters, peelers, ice cream scoops, and skewers, just to name a few. Also having dividers or tray in these drawers is helpful so your tools are readily available when you need them. For larger drawers, it can be tricky to calculate the sizes of multiple organizers to perfectly fit inside the space. In these cases, you can measure the interior with a parchment paper hack that makes organizing kitchen drawers so much easier.