How to Organize Pots and Pans

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Have you wondered how to organize pots and pans in your kitchen? Conveniently organizing pots and pans is important since they are essential everyday kitchen items and can often be awkward to organize and store. If you’ve tried everything and are looking for unique storage ideas to keep your pots and pans contained and easily accessible, no more worries. Here are 11 organization ideas you can use in your kitchen.

The key points to consider in organizing pots and pans as part of your kitchen organization are:

• Store them in a convenient location near the stove
• Store them so they’re easy to access
• Store them so that the pots and pans are protected from damage

How to Organize Pots and Pans

Organize Pots and Pans in Cabinets

Make It Easy to Access Pots and Pans

1. Use bins and baskets to make it easy to pull pots and pans out of the back of the cabinet and reach what you need. You can even use a repurposed cardboard box from a warehouse store.
2. Create sliding storage in your cabinets. You can buy ready-made sliding storage racks which can be installed easily. The pots and pans can either be stored on wire racks that pull out or hung from a rack that pulls out depending upon which type you choose.
3. Use inexpensive kitchen shelf risers to raise the pots in the back of the cabinet to make them easier to reach.  

Add a Shallow Storage Shelf

If you have a deep cabinet, you can add additional storage by adding a separate shallow storage shelf. You can DIY a shelf from wood or from MDF to save money. The shallow shelf could be used to store lids, while the deeper section could store the pots and pans.

In a Corner Cabinet

Let’s be honest, that corner cabinet is just plain awkward. It’s often where we chose to store our pots and pans so that means our pot  and pan storage can end up being a mess. But it doesn’t have to be that way with these organizing ideas.

1. If you have the deep corner cabinet with just shelves, use bins, baskets and trays that you can pull out to access items from the deep recesses of the cabinet. Big warehouse tray-style boxes work well. You can also purchase acrylic bins with handles to make it easy to reach everything stored in the cabinet. 
2. If you have a Lazy Susan unit it can be helpful until items fall off and are lost in the very back of the cabinet. Use wedge-shaped acrylic baskets designed specifically for the round Lazy Susan. These bins are perfect for holding lids, smaller pots and pans and keep items from falling into the black hole of the back of the corner cabinet.
3. There are a variety of useful organization tools you can install in the corner cabinet:
   1. Swing Out Trays
   2. Pull-Out 2-Tier Basket
   3. Pivot and Pull Lazy-Susan
   4. 2-Tier Curved Organizer

Organize Pots and Pans in Drawers

Custom Cabinet Dividers

1. If you have deep drawers in your kitchen you can keep your pots and pans organized by adding  adjustable drawer dividers. 
2. You can make your own drawer dividers from inexpensive MDF if you’re on a budget. Simply cut pieces of the MDF and slide them down into the drawer, providing separate areas to store specific pots and pans. For example, one section could be used for roasting pans, while another could be used for your frying or sauté pans. 

File Pans

1. Rather than stacking pots and pans in the drawer, organize them vertically like file folders. This makes it easy to see every item and immediately access the one you want – no more wrestling with a pile to pull the pot you want out from the bottom of the pile. 
2. You can use plastic baskets to hold the filed pans or you can purchase a rack organizer to place in the drawer and hold your pans vertically. 

Using Pot Hooks 

Cabinet Hooks

1. Adding hooks to the inside of a cabinet door can provide a fantastic place to hang pan lids. The lids will be easy to reach, while eliminating clutter from the inside of the cabinet. Using Command Hooks allows you to try this organizing technique and remove the hooks later if you’d like.  
2. Hooks can be added to the outside of a cabinet. Often there are cabinets with side panels that can be used to hang pots and pans. This is space that is otherwise unused and a perfect candidate for adding hooks for organization.

Hanging Pot Rack

1. A ceiling pot rack is a charming way to add storage space for hanging pots and pans. The ceiling is unused space that provides potential storage space. 
2. There are many choices of hanging pot racks available. There are also tutorials available online to DIY your own ceiling pot racks.

More Pot and Pan Organizing Tips

Stacked Pots and Pans

One problem with storing pots and pans stacked in cabinets is they can easily become scratched and the finish damaged. A clever and inexpensive trick to prevent scratches in stacked pots is to use paper plates as a divider between the pots and pans. This cushioned layer protects the sides and bottoms so they won’t be scratched. 

Organizing Pot Lids

1. Pot lids can be difficult to organize. They tend to slip around in cabinets and drawers and rarely remain stacked neatly. Using a simple basket or bin to hold the lids is an effective solution for storage in a cabinet or a drawer. Using a basket allows you to file the lids vertically and contains all the lids neatly together.
2. You can use inexpensive tension rods to hold pot lids vertically next to the side or front of a drawer.  
3. Use a repurposed dish rack to hold pot lids vertically.

Knowing how to  organize pots and pans will help you get one key area of your kitchen under control. And this is a foundational area in any kitchen. 

Find all my best Kitchen organizing ideas, printables and favorite products in the table below. You can scroll though the table and look for ideas or search for specific ideas with the magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner (on desktop). Click on the topic and then click through the specific article.