Enjoy Cooking in a Clean and Organised Kitchen: Learn How to Organise an Indian Kitchen with Simple Tips and Tricks, and Save Your Time and Money (2021)

The short answer to that question is yes. In an Indian household, the kitchen is the most used room. Indians have an elaborate food culture that has been developed over centuries and you live to eat and not eat to live. Earlier women of the house used to spend hours in the kitchen concocting delicious traditional dishes. Nowadays men and women of the house spend hours in the kitchen concocting delicious traditional, global, continental and fusion dishes. Considering how much time is spent in a kitchen, it is always beneficial to keep it organised and clean. None of you would like to work and spend time in a place that is disorganised and dirty especially when food is involved. Moreover, there are 2 main reasons why you must keep your kitchen organised:

The first reason is that it saves time. When objects and ingredients are segregated and stored in particular places in the kitchen, it is easier to access them. You do not have to turn your kitchen upside down to look for that utensil you don’t use often but need it now to prepare this specific dish. Your cooking will be done smoothly without such ‘treasure hunt’ interruptions in between, thus saving you time. Time is a rare commodity nowadays and more often than not you are either cooking before leaving for work or after returning from work. In the former situation, you cannot waste time looking for utensils and in the latter situation, you do not have the energy to do so.

The second reason is that it saves money. When your kitchen is disorganised, there is no fixed place for anything. Today you place the items on the kitchen counter, tomorrow you will place them in the cupboard. What this can lead to is you placing a perishable item somewhere at the back of a cupboard and then forgetting all about it. By the time you discover it, it is way past the expiry date. You have no other option than to chuck it in the bin. If you have had a specific place for perishable items in your kitchen, then you would have kept them there. So even if you had forgotten about buying it, surfing through the perishable items' cupboard to prepare your next meal will remind you of its existence. Much money is wasted with food going past expiry dates with you being unaware of it. An organised kitchen will prevent this wastage and save you money.

Indian kitchens are very different from American ones or kitchens from other Western countries. It has to be as cuisines and food culture of India is very different to those in the West. As a result, kitchen organisation should also be different. What organising routine would work for an American kitchen, would not work in an Indian one. Example, a pantry is a place in American kitchens where packaged foods and other household items like cleaning products etc. are kept. There is no need of a pantry space in Indian kitchens as Indian food culture mostly involves dishes cooked from scratch with fresh produce and packaged food features less or not at all. Also, Indians do not like to keep food and cleaning products in the same place. So, follow this BP Guide for 8 kitchen organising tips specific to Indian kitchens for a tidier kitchen space:

There is no Indian kitchen in this world that has not got a variety of spices under its roof. It is common in Indian cuisine to use as many as 6 to 7 different types of spices to prepare a particular dish. The most common way of storing all those spices is to put each of them in small jars but all these jars will take up unnecessary space in your kitchen. Not only that, so many jars will also make the kitchen counter look untidy. The solution is to put those spices in a spice box. A spice box is essentially a tiffin box with small bowls inside. Each bowl is for one particular spice. This way you will be able to store all the spices without taking much space and without making the counter look untidy as a spice box is compact.

Fresh vegetables are largely responsible for making the kitchen dirty. The main culprits are potatoes (dusty exterior), leafy greens (shedding leaves) and onions (shedding scales). Keeping vegetables lying about here and there on kitchen counters will make your whole kitchen untidy. Limit this dirtiness to a specific part in the kitchen and that part would be the vegetable rack. Store the potatoes in one level, the onions, ginger and garlic in another level, and use one level as a space to thaw refrigerated vegetables before cooking.

You usually store kitchen utensils and containers by arranging them one beside the other in a neat pile. While that might be a tidy way to store utensils, it takes up a lot of space and will be a problem in small-sized kitchens. The most efficient way of storing these containers is by putting the smaller ones inside the bigger ones, like it happens in a Russian doll. This way your utensils will take up less surface space.

The most ubiquitous objects in a kitchen are the spoons. Spoons of different sizes, types and functions. Tablespoons, teaspoons, spatulas, slotted spoons, ladles, etc. Barring the tablespoons and teaspoons, the other ones have a hole at the end of their handles. Use these holes to hang them up on hooks. This is the most organised way of storing them. They will be kept in one place and there are less chances of them getting misplaced. You can also hang small-sized handled pots and pans from these hooks.

Kitchen cupboards do not feature in traditional Indian kitchens but they certainly do deserve a spot there. In those cupboards, you can keep your utensils, rations and other paraphernalia of cooking. Kitchen cupboards are usually made overhead but they can also be on the floor against the wall. They prevent your kitchen from turning into a cluttered mess by providing a space for all the kitchen utensils and objects you need in your kitchen. Moreover, the many cupboards and their shelves allow you to store your utensils in a segregated manner so that you can easily access them when required.

Desk organisers are elaborate pen holders that can hold more than just pens. They are boxes partitioned into many pockets of space and each pocket can be used to keep a certain item. Spoons, forks, scissors, knives, peelers, matchboxes, lighters are small objects and can easily be lost. The only way to keep these small objects from getting lost is to keep them collected in one place. That place is the desk organiser. Besides the said items, you can keep kitchen cloths, salt and pepper sprinklers, gloves, tissue papers, sauce bottles in the many compartments of a desk organiser. The best thing about desk organisers is that it can store a multitude of items without taking much space.

There are some items in the kitchen that you do not seem to find a place for. These items are packets of chips, packets/cups of instant noodles, toffees, extra ketchup sachets from fast food take-outs, an assortment of tea bags containing tea of different flavours, packets of mouth freshener and digestives, a bowl of soaked grams or pulses, lemons, fruits, a bowl of green chillies, etc. Assign separate trays for each of these items and arrange them accordingly. Trays give a home to these items which you are not sure where to keep. Otherwise you will have to dump them on the kitchen counter creating a clutter.

A plate organiser and cup hooks are tools needed in every kitchen. Both of these tools are simple, minimalistic, take up less space in the kitchen but go a long way in making it a tidier one. As for a dish drainer, it is one tool that prevents the kitchen from turning into a wet mess. A dish drainer, drains the water shedding from washed utensils directly into a sink. Without it, the washed utensils set out to dry will create a pool of water which will trickle to all parts of the kitchen.

To organise the kitchen in the way stated in the above-mentioned tips, you need some kitchen tools. Following are 6 tools which are a must have to achieve a well organised kitchen:

This is a medium-sized, round shaped spice box made of stainless steel. The diameter of the box is 18.5 cm and it comes with 7 containers and a spoon. It has a see through lid. The 7 container count is ideal for an Indian kitchen as even your “everyday spices”(spices used in daily cooking) go up to that number. The high quality stainless steel body ensures that it is long lasting and the air tight and compact design makes sure that the spices remain fresh and aromatic for a long period of time. This spice box can be bought for ₹ 1,299.00 from Amazon.

This vegetable rack is made of stainless steel and has 3 tiers. The dimensions are 41 cm x 24 cm x 52 cm. The trays in each tier are spacious enough to accommodate a medium-sized bunch of vegetables. The metal body of the rack ensures that it does not capitulate under the weight of the vegetables. The wheels at the bottom of the rack enable you to move it around easily. This rack can be bought for ₹ 1,999.00 from Flipkart.

This cutlery holder will take you a long way in keeping your kitchen organised. It is made of high quality teak wood and has dimensions of 35 cm x 19 cm x 10 cm. It is divided into 6 sections and you can use each section for a particular type of cutlery. You also get a pair of salt and pepper shakers with the product and a cute chef toy with it. Buy this cutlery holder for ₹ 2,000.00 from The Weaver's Nest.

These multi-purpose plastic trays are a must-have in every kitchen. This deal gives you 5 of them in a pack, each being of a particular colour. The dimensions of each tray are 28 cm x 8 cm x 11 cm. These are made of durable plastic and can be used to store a variety of objects that you are not sure where to place in the kitchen. These trays are the key to a clutter-free and organised kitchen. Get these 5 trays for a price of ₹ 375.00 from Amazon.

This plate rack has 12 sections and is of the dimensions 430 mm x 140 mm x 130 mm. It is made of stainless steel with anti-rust coating (nickel chrome plating) that makes it strong and durable. There is enough spacing between the racks so that the plates do not brush against each other and get scratched. This product is minimalistic, takes up less space and suits any type of kitchen. You can also use this rack as a plate drainer. This rack can be bought for ₹ 660.00 from Amazon.

This plastic dish drainer is of dimensions 12 inches x 17 inches x 8 inches and weighs around 350 gm. It consists of 3 separate parts – a basket where you put your plates and bowls to drain, a compartment where you put spoons, knives, forks, etc. to drain and a slanted tray with an outlet below the basket which collects the water dripping from the utensils and drains them into the sink through the outlet. It is made of sturdy plastic and is lightweight. It is also compact and has an elegant design. You can get this dish drainer for ₹ 1,999.00 on Amazon.