How to clean your fridge like a pro
Keeping your refrigerator clean is not the most exciting thing in the world but we all need to clean out our fridges from time to time. It’s important in terms of hygiene, food safety, and of course you don’t want any bad smells coming from food that’s been stored in your fridge for too long. Come on, we’ve all done it, there’s food that lingers right at the back of your shelves for too long. Then there’s spillages with milk, fruit juices or various liquids or syrupy foods that can get everywhere, leaving a messy mark, as well as a smell if its left too long. so here are some useful tips to help get the job done quickly and efficiently.
Personally, I like to thoroughly clean out my refrigerator every 2 to 3 months as part of my kitchen zone cleaning routine, and in between times I’ll just do a quick wipe down. Now I prefer to do this before my large grocery shop because there’s less food to have to remove from the refrigerator and it’s always nice to come home and put the food into a nice clean fridge.
So, let’s get to it. Here’s what you’ll need :
- some all-purpose cleaner
- vinegar or lemon juice
- some microfiber cloths
- a recycling bin
- a garbage bin
Phase 1 – Emptying the refrigerator
The first part is kind of fun, you just start taking everything out of your fridge. It’s kind of like a trip down memory lane ! Hey, where did those pickles come ?
I remember that salsa tasted great, but why on earth didn’t I finish it, now its past its best.
How many times do we buy a load of fruit and veggies and pack them away at the back of the fridge, then they get buried behind some other food so we can’t see them and we forget they’re even there? Happens all the time.
And what about finding doubles ? You often forget you’ve still got half of jar of mustard or pickles left over so you buy a new jar. Now you have 2 half-empty jars (or half full depending on your mood). But they’re taking up unnecessary space in your refrigerator.
So, once you’ve emptied all the food from your fridge it’s time for phase 2
Phase 2 – Cleaning all the shelves and drawers
I always start in the same spot. I like to start with the doors – I remove the shelves and just give them a quick wipe down. If you haven’t cleaned your refrigerator in a while you might want to take them over to the sink and scrub them with some dish soap but I just use vinegar and water. I fill my spray bottle a third of the way with vinegar and the rest with water. I like to use vinegar in the refrigerator because it’s definitely safe to spray around our food. This is obviously a great time to remove any food or condiments that have expired or that you know no one is going to eat inside your fridge.
Grab an all-purpose cleaner and a microfiber cloth and start by just dousing the fridge here with the all-purpose cleaner. By the time you get to the shelves on the door the stuff on the top shelf will have had a chance to loosen up and for the crisper drawers you should actually remove them entirely giving them a spritz so that way you can clean the area underneath.
Now when you’re doing this be gentle – your fridge components are designed to come out you just have to be careful make sure you don’t crack or break anything.
So now the cleaning product has had a chance to sit and break up the dirt you’re going to wipe everything nice and clean making sure to get inside the drawer. It’s also important to get the underside of the shelf especially if it’s glass. Sometimes bottles that are tall or containers can graze the underside of that shelf and leave a grimey little streak of residue so make sure you get the sides in the back of the fridge as well.
It’s really such a simple thing to do and it makes you feel so much better about your kitchen just knowing that your fridge is clean. it’s also important to make sure that everything is dry so once you’ve wiped it clean you want to make sure it’s dry because you don’t want any nasty mildew situations happening in the fridge.
If you do encounter any difficult stains in the fridge you can sprinkle a little baking soda on top of the all-purpose cleaner and let that sit for a minute or two and then give it a good scrub. Now one other thing you can do is take the drawers and give them a quick rinse because there are often little crumbs you can’t get rid of. After rinsing and drying just pop the drawers back in. Next get ready for phase 3.
Phase 3 – reloading the food
First pick out the “science experiments”, look at any of the stuff that you haven’t used in a while but I prefer to start off with the fruits and veggies. Next I lay down a cloth napkin before I put my greens back in the drawer. I also do this in my tubs of spinach because that cloth napkin is going to absorb any extra moisture and it will help your greens to last a long time. It’s a neat trick to help your greens last a little longer.
It’s also a great idea to clean out your freezer before you go to the grocery store so that you know exactly what is in there and what you want to use up and that way you aren’t buying things that you really didn’t need because they’re buried somewhere in your freezer. I have found that having containers for things in my freezer really helped because without them, everything would just be piled in there and you’d always have to sift through everything.
Next I’m just sorting through everything picking out the stuff that I’m going to keep. Yes all that stuff goes back in, you don’t want to over-stuff your crisper drawer either I try to separate out fruits and veggies but if it doesn’t happen that’s okay. Next I just sort through checking expiry dates looking at anything that I haven’t eaten in a while or things that I’m not going to eat, things that I want to get rid of. If that includes any sauces or mayo for example you can just squirt that into the garbage bin.
It’s also a good time to consolidate anything so if you have doubles of anything you can consolidate those into one container and that makes storage obviously more efficient in your fridge. And don’t just dump your jars in the recycling bin either – you should empty things out first it’s much better not to put it down the sink. Now for anything that has oil or grease in it, obviously you don’t want to put that down your sink, so instead you should pour that into a zipped bag and then throw out the bag.
Finally we definitely don’t want to overlook our water and ice dispenser because this can get grimey if you don’t wipe it down often. So make sure you give that a good old rinse and wipe down as well.
All finished
And there you go – your fridge which was looking untidy, messy, and a little bit smelly now looks great and smells fresh. If you want to give it an extra zingy fresh smell, spray a little lemon juice around the inside and let it sit for 15 minutes before wiping it down and drying off. All in all the fridge cleaning job didn’t take too long to and it really reinvigorates your kitchen. It just makes it feel so much better you can really see the difference.
Need a little inspiration? Check out this really useful video :