The Fall Pantry Reset: What to Toss, Restock, and Reorganize
Almost like clockwork, I notice how much more time I’m spending in the kitchen this time of year!
Summer in our family tends to be a little more relaxed - we’re traveling, eating outside, schedules are all over the place, and I’m not thinking much about what’s hiding in the back of the pantry. 😂 Then fall hits and the kitchen starts working overtime again!
With Kendall and Lucas back in school, we’re back to packing lunches, grabbing snacks on the way out the door, and figuring out dinner around homework and busy schedules. We’re cooking a lot more cozy recipes as the weather changes here in the Pacific Northwest, and I know it won’t be long before I’m pulling out the baking ingredients for the holidays!
Every year around this time, I love resetting our pantry to help prepare us for the season ahead. I clear out what we’re no longer reaching for, take inventory before the busiest months of the year, and make sure the things we use every day are easily accessible!
So before holiday baking begins and another box of cereal gets shoved to the back of the shelf, let’s get your pantry ready for cozy season!
Start With What You’re Not Eating
Before you reorganize anything, take a good look at what’s in your pantry.
I like to pull most things out because it’s almost impossible to know what you have when boxes of snacks are stacked in front of each other and shoved into corners. This is also usually when you discover that you own four jars of the exact same pasta sauce or enough taco seasoning to get you through the next several years. 🤣
Start with the obvious things that need to go - check expiration dates, toss anything stale, and deal with those nearly empty bags and boxes that have been hanging around forever.
I also want you to pay attention to the food that is perfectly fine, but your family simply isn’t eating. Maybe your child begged for a certain snack and decided after one serving that they hated it. Maybe you bought an ingredient for a recipe you never made. Maybe you stocked up on something because it was on sale, only to realize nobody in your house particularly likes it.
I know food can be a difficult category to declutter because getting rid of it feels wasteful. However, if something is unopened and still good, this is a great opportunity to donate it to a local food bank! Keeping something in your pantry for another year because you feel guilty getting rid of it doesn’t make the original purchase less wasteful. If you know your family isn’t going to enjoy it, let it go while someone else still can.
Take Inventory Before You Restock
Once you’ve removed what doesn’t belong, start grouping everything that’s left.
Put all of your snacks together, gather the canned goods, find all the pasta, and bring your baking ingredients into one place. You don’t have to know exactly where everything is going yet - the point is to see what you have before you put it all back.
We find SO many duplicates when we organize pantries for clients, and most of the time it isn’t because someone intentionally wanted six of the same thing - it’s because they couldn’t see the first five. When your pantry doesn’t have clear categories, it’s incredibly easy to stand in the grocery store wondering whether you have peanut butter at home and decide to grab another jar just in case.
This is also why I like having a designated place for backstock. If your family goes through certain foods quickly or you buy in bulk, there’s nothing wrong with keeping extras… you just need to know where they are! Keeping your backstock together makes it much easier to check what you already have before you shop, and it keeps those extras from getting mixed in with the food you’re currently using.
Organize for Your Household’s Fall Routine
This is the part of a pantry reset that I think matters the most! Don’t organize your pantry based on what looks beautiful in someone else’s house - organize it around what happens in yours.
Think about a normal weekday morning…
If you’re packing lunches every day, are you reaching into multiple different areas of the pantry to find everything you need? Could you create one lunch section instead?
If your kids get their own snacks after school, can they easily see and reach the options you want them to have?
If fall means more baking in your house, would it make sense to bring those ingredients together instead of having them spread throughout the pantry?
Our own systems have changed a lot as my kids have gotten older. They’re much more independent now, which means I want our pantry to make sense to them too, not just to me. I don’t want to be the only person who knows where something goes or where to find it. But if you have younger kids, your needs might be completely different! Maybe your pantry needs a low snack bin they can access themselves or maybe you need to hide your candy bin on a higher shelf so they don’t sneak in and steal your treats (you deserve to keep those to yourself 😉).
This is one of the reasons I’m not a fan of creating dozens of tiny pantry categories. The more complicated a system is, the more effort it takes for everyone to maintain it. I’d rather have one obvious “snack” category than separate bins for granola bars, crackers, fruit snacks, etc. Your categories should make sense almost without explanation! When someone is putting groceries away, they should be able to look at the pantry and know where something belongs.
Restock What Makes Sense for This Season
Once everything is sorted and you know what you already have, then make your grocery list! This is where I’d think less about filling your pantry and more about what would genuinely make your life easier over the next few months.
What are the foods your family consistently goes through during the school week?
What baking supplies do you need in order to make your favorite fall treats?
What do you reach for on busy nights when the dinner you planned isn’t going to happen?
What are the staples you’re always annoyed to discover you’ve run out of?
Those are the things worth keeping stocked!
And don’t feel like you need to fill every empty inch of your pantry after you’ve worked so hard to clear it out. Empty space is useful! It gives you room to put groceries away, helps you see what you already own, and makes it much easier to notice when something is running low. A completely packed pantry might feel well stocked, but if you can’t see half of what’s in there, it’s not making your life any easier.
Buy Organizing Products Last
I know this is not the exciting answer (especially coming from a Professional Organizer), but I would not start your pantry reset by buying organizing products. Bins, turntables, labels, and containers can absolutely make a pantry function better, but only when you know what problem you’re trying to solve.
If bags of snacks are constantly falling over, an open basket might be exactly what you need.
If cans + bottles disappear into a deep corner, a turntable could make them easier to reach.
If your family buys certain staples in bulk and you want to see when you’re running low, clear containers might be helpful.
But you do not need to decant every single thing you buy into a matching container to have an organized pantry!
I see people get so caught up in how an organized pantry is supposed to look that they accidentally create more work for themselves. The goal is not to create a pantry that only looks beautiful on the day you organize it - it’s to create one that still works on a busy weekday a few weeks later.
Make It Easy to Reset
Your pantry is going to get messy again.
I can almost guarantee someone will put something on the wrong shelf, groceries will get shoved wherever there’s room, and a second box will get opened before the first one is finished. That doesn’t mean your organizing system failed… it means people actually live in your house (imagine that 😉).
What I want for you is a pantry that’s easy to bring back to order. When the categories are simple, there’s enough room to see what you own, and the things you use most are easy to reach, a reset shouldn’t require another full day of organizing. You should be able to spend 10 or 15 minutes putting things back where they belong and move on with your day.
So if your pantry is feeling a little out of control after summer, don’t convince yourself that you need an entire free weekend before you can do anything about it. Start with one shelf! Throw away what’s expired, pull out a few things your family isn’t going to eat, group the duplicates, and pay attention to what keeps getting in your way.
But if you find yourself in need of some reinforcement, our Bellingham and Seattle-based teams would love to help! Pantries are one of our favorite spaces to organize, and we’d love to help yours work better for you as we head into a season full of cozy meals, holidays, and hosting! Schedule your complimentary, no-obligation consultation with us today.
