The One Thing That Finally Helped Me Declutter My Collection of Pots and Pans

If you had asked me when I was 21 what I was most looking forward to about my 30s, I probably would have said a matching cookware set. And I would have been disappointed to learn that, more than a decade later, I’d still be cooking with the random assortment of pots and pans I’ve acquired over the years. I make out just fine with my hodgepodge of pots and pans—and all their imperfect, mismatched lids. The only problem I run into is when it comes to storing them.

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Because none are from the same collection, a lid from one pan isn’t easily interchangeable with a pot from another. Until recently, that’s led to a clustered stacking of cookware in my largest cupboard. That often meant I had to take out several pans to get to the right one, and then go searching for the right lid. It sometimes felt like getting set up to cook took as long as preparing the meal itself. 

After moving into a new apartment, with a new kitchen layout to squeeze into, I decided it was finally time to find a cookware storage solution. As a renter, I can't exactly customize my cabinets and drawers to fit all my pots and pans perfectly, and I can’t remodel the kitchen to make more room, so I needed to organize it. And as much as I’d love to hang my pots and pans from a wall-mounted rack, I don’t trust myself enough to secure it safely enough.

Organization? It’s All About Those Lids

The most sensible and affordable way to organize my pots and pans was to get the lids in coherent order. I bought these Puricon adjustable organizer racks to give me the structure to get the job done. Now, I have all my lids in a neat row, with my pots, pans, and metal strainers arranged on their sides in our deepest cupboard. 

With this system, everything is easy to find, and nothing needs to be unpacked to get cooking. I just reach into the cabinet and grab what I need. And because I don’t have to stack cookware on top of and within each other, there are fewer opportunities to unnecessarily scrape the surfaces of my nonstick pans.

Next, I plan to tackle my growing collection of cast-iron pans, which currently resides on the bottom shelf of my kitchen cart. I’m hoping this heavy-duty organizer, which would allow me to safely stack them vertically without any clanging together, will do the trick.