how to cook with a tiny refrigerator?

September 3, 2021 7:01 PM

I live in a small apartment with a smaller kitchen and an even smaller refrigerator (7 cu ft interior, with awkward layout). I like to keep fresh vegetables, a little bit of meat and a lot of cheese, my favorite condiments (i have a lot of favorites) and some leftovers in there, and it's a tight squeeze! What are your favorite tricks for maximizing storage in a little fridge?

Bonus question: what are your favorite non-refrigerated but non-obvious items to keep around both for cooking and for snacking? Maybe I can move more of my stuff out of the fridge entirely.

This is a brand new fridge so I'm still trying to figure it out - my old one was slightly larger, with a tiny freezer and substantially more non-frozen space.

posted by moonmilk to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

Previously on what to stock.
posted by jgirl at 7:04 PM on September 3, 2021

For expanded cold space, when cooking for others, I would use a cooler full of ice. I would buy a couple of bags of ice when at the grocery and then cook later that day. In the winter, I would use the balcony as a refrigerator.
posted by AugustWest at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

Most of those condiments don't really need to be refrigerated. If you have a dark closet or pantry area, many of them will be good in there after opening for several months. Ofc it depends on the condiment but the point is, we culturally refrigerate a lot of stuff we don't have to in the US, and that can save you some fridge space.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:47 PM on September 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

When I had a fridge that small in a studio, I bought a chest freezer :). I kept it in my main room. I also don’t cook much so it let me keep a lot more frozen/ready to microwave stuff on hand. Ymmv. I also always had things spoiling, especially dairy, in such a small fridge because it wasn’t good with temp consistency so I would keep frozen eggs and milk frozen in small portions to thaw when i did want to bake etc.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 7:49 PM on September 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Some of this will depend on what is weird about your fridge and also a little bit depends on your climate. In temperate climates you can keep butter in a butter bell or something and it will be fine. If you get eggs from a local farm there's a chance they don't need to be refrigerated. You can get dairy in small boxes if you don't use much and it's fine in a cupboard. You can use flexible storage containers for leftovers (like all those plastic-ish bags Instagram keeps showing to me) and they will take up less space than one container which holds four servings but only one is left. You can take some things that may take up a lot of space when flat and put them into upright storage so they'd be standing on end (think string cheese or something). Decant a lot of stuff into similar sized storage containers and make sure you right-size when the container is getting empty.
posted by jessamyn at 7:54 PM on September 3, 2021

We have a similarly sized fridge with similar things in it and I try to keep it organized by:

-using clear bins to keep things corralled
-leftovers ONLY in square or rectangular containers, bowls/rounds take up too much space
-using a quarter size sheet pan judiciously on top of a row of leftovers like this
-processing veggies as soon as possible (e.g., sliced cabbage takes up less space than a head)
-using a magnetic whiteboard on the front of the fridge for inventory so nothing gets lost
-taking everything (even the condiments) out of the fridge once a week anyways to clean it out
posted by stellaluna at 7:57 PM on September 3, 2021 [6 favorites]

- Get some tiny spatulas. Use them to migrate your half-used condiments to smaller, and perhaps more beautiful, jars.

- Find a gourmet cheese shop nearby. Plan whatever commute you have, or whatever evening or weekend activity you have yet to discover, to guide you past this shop. Buy a tiny bit of wonderful cheese every two to three days, and, like the lover of cheese you are, preserve its soul by keeping it at room temperature and consuming it quickly.

- Of course there will be a transcendant bakery near the cheese shop. With strong baguettes and fresh cheese, you only need a little fruit spread to have a pretty good life. Of course we will aim higher.

- Every Wednesday night, if you are fortunate to have the funds, you can go to an exquisite cafe or bistro -- which you will discover in the fourth week of your lease -- and order only green side dishes: beautiful salads, haricots with almonds, braised broccoli with halloumi and olive vinaigrette.

- Every Saturday morning, go to the farmer's market where you are most likely to be able to pet a cat. Don't pet the cat! He's been petted too much, and if you just stand near him on enough Saturdays, eventually he might notice you, or not, but either way you are showing him true friendship. Buy lots of vegetables, then go home and wash, trim, and make them ready for the coming week -- they are smaller after this preparation, and you will, of course, eat a lot of them immediately. After you finish both baskets of figs and the entire log of goat cheese. Regret nothing - you are preparing yourself for the coming week too.

- If you have guests coming over, just pick up some of that brie you love and the gouda that the cheese shop guy is always telling you you have to try. Also get some more of those figs, because they are incredible. You'll already have that seeded flatbread -- easy to store -- and you are done, since your guests will bring something to drink (and you have some small cans of V8 and mineral water for emergencies). All the time you might, in the past, have spent cooking you can now spend getting a short nap, and you will be a much better hostess.

- After that snack dinner party, you will be feeling like a domestic goddess, and you realize that you do, after all, have time to adopt a kitten or two. Unfortunately, when you go to the shelter, you see a seven year old pit bull looking at you on the way to the cat section, and you end up bringing Harold home and a kitten named Jake who, while introspective for a kitten, is still utterly barmy. Fortunately he and Harold love each other instantly, and Harold actually moves his tail in an intentionally toy-like manner, so, miraculously, nothing in your apartment is destroyed.

- One should never adopt just one kitten. They are tortured by boredom.

- After a while, you are an expert at the calculus of planning what food to eat when, so that nothing goes to waste and the space you have seems perfect. You are living a life of exclusively very fresh food. That is delightful enough, but as you crunch the crunchiest of romaines with the sweetest of orange sesame dressing, you watch Jake licking Harold's face and Harold letting him, and you realize that you barely need a refrigerator at all.
posted by amtho at 8:24 PM on September 3, 2021 [30 favorites]

I was constantly struggling with my small fridge being so overstuffed that nothing more could go in and it was an ordeal to find anything in it to actually eat or cook with. We mitigated the problem by purchasing a small, dorm-room size fridge to handle a bit of overflow. It helped quite a bit.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 8:50 PM on September 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

We also purchased a dorm fridge mostly for auxiliary beverage storage.

Though it's true that you can fit more things in square containers, it's easy to go overboard and cause things in your tiny fridge to freeze in the back/bottom due to poor circulation (at least if your small fridge is anything like ours). We tend to lose condiments in ours so we have some lazy susans that keep everything organized and accessible, which in turn prevents us from accidentally having three open jars of marmalade. You lose some space around the lazy susan but it works for our system.

Luckily our fridge has pretty good door storage for things like milk, but if yours doesn't you can always repackage in containers that fit better.

Salad dressing is always awkward but rather than buy pre-made bottles we most often make it fresh.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:14 PM on September 3, 2021

If the awkward layout includes drawers, take those out and it will be easier to maximize your use of space.

Plastic bags instead of storage containers whenever possible (I try to make myself feel less guilty by cleaning and reusing bags as many times as possible). Depending on your setup, you might need a smaller bin to contain these once you ditch the drawers.

Check out a place like Daiso for non-US sized small storage containers. Wide mouth half pint mason jars or regular mouth quarter pint jars are nice sizes/easy to stack if you are not into cheap plastic.

Think of your shelves has having layers--maybe there is the bottom hard layer of containers with a soft layer of produce on top?

Any chance you can buy your cheeses by the ounce?
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:17 PM on September 3, 2021

As others have said, most condiments will do just fine outside the fridge, regardless of what the label says. The only ones I keep in the fridge are the pickles, including kimchi, and the fruit preserves. That still takes up the whole top shelf. There are also some things in tube form in the middle shelf of the door: harissa, mayo and tomato paste.
Also in the door are the dairy products, with cheeses on the top shelf of the door, and a limited amount of drinks. I only have enough water/juice etc. for one day in the fridge, the rest are outside. But if cold drinks are important to you, use the vegetable drawer(s). I do that when I have guests staying. I have two drawers, side by side, and in one, I keep the "hard" vegetables, like potatoes, carrots, brassica. In the other, there are "softer" vegetables, like spring onions, celery, cucumber, parsley, but they can come out if drinks go in. Delicate vegs and herbs like lettuce, cilantro or mint go on the bottom shelf where I can see them and they won't get squished. Most other vegetables like tomatoes, avocados, alliums (except spring onions and leeks) stay out of the fridge. Fruit stays out, except citrus, berries and melons you have cut up, that go on the bottom shelf, but in a pinch, the citrus fruits can stay out for a few days.
If you have too many cheeses for the top door shelf, it's nice to have them all together in a transparent container on the middle shelf. That way smaller pieces don't "disappear" among the other stuff. The same works for charcuterie. This also makes it easier to keep your fridge clean. The middle shelf is also the home of eggs, and butter if the cheeses are in the top shelf of the door, otherwise the butter goes there. Leftovers go in the smallest possible containers, also on the middle shelf. It looks like the middle shelf is carrying a lot, but with stackable transparent containers in different shapes and sizes, one can do a nice fridge-tetra game.
In my opinion, a small fridge is nicer than a big one, if you live in a city where frequent shopping is easy. I buy a little every day, and I enjoy the impulsiveness of it.
posted by mumimor at 2:45 AM on September 4, 2021

I just realized that I read your question wrong -- you asked how to cook, not how to stack.
Maybe look at cookbooks such as the classic How To Cook A Wolf, by MFK Fisher, or Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal. Both are about frugal living, but basically demonstrate how to let one meal grow into the next. However, I gave them to my daughter when she moved into her first own tiny apartment with a tiny fridge, and she finds them a bit hard to read. So I'll put in an example of my own.

The thing with minimal space is that you want to have a flow of elements in your fridge and pantry. You don't want to have a ton of leftovers or half-used produce. But you also don't want to eat the same three days in a row. And I don't want to meal plan, that's why I shop a little every day. For instance, this week I bought a pointy cabbage, because I love pointy cabbage. So the first day, I cut off the pointy end, and used it for a salad with radishes, cranberries and walnuts, dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette. Then I used some in a Thai-inspired curry with rice, and the last bit I had last night: I marinated it in a dressing made with tahini, a whole lemon, some rape-seed oil, roasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, and a bit of extra salt. I should have used some crushed garlic and a bit of chili flakes too. When the cabbage had wilted a bit because of the lemon and salt, I cooked some noodles and mixed them into the cabbage with some cherry tomatoes. It was delicious! Now for the curry, I used some spring onions and half a bell pepper, so now I have the rest of the bunch of spring onions and the other half of the bell pepper and when I walked the dog, I bought some mushrooms, so I can make Kung Pao Mushrooms. If I have extra mushrooms tomorrow, they might inspire me to buy some chicken legs, and make a Chicken Chasseur, I haven't decided yet. And that would lead to some new interesting stuff in my fridge. I sometimes type in the ingredients I have on google to see what comes up. It looks like a lot of work, but all of the above are < 30 minute meals.

In my pantry, I have lots of different seaweeds and dried mushrooms, both can add flavor to a multitude of dishes. I also have dried Iranian limes, which I haven't really learnt to use yet, but when I try them, I really like the flavor they give. Ottolenghi has opinions.
posted by mumimor at 4:06 AM on September 4, 2021

Your profile says you are in Brooklyn. In the US eggs are required to be washed before sale, so they are not safe to store at room temp, unlike most of the rest of the world. This is required to lessen the risk of illness like salmonella. One or two of the posters above suggested storing eggs at room temp, but unless you have an alternate supply of unwashed eggs, this isn't a good idea. Butter is fine at room temp, though. You can buy juice, milk and milk alternatives in the square unrefrigerated packages common in Europe. These can stay on a shelf until opened, but then need refrigeration. At least they are square and fit well in small spaces.

I once ran a small catering business out of my apartment. I had a smallish fridge, but not as small as the one you have, I think, mine was more like a narrow, short chest of drawers. I found the most frustrating limitation was the narrow shelves, which would not take any wider storage pans or serving platters. My advice for you would be to get only rectangular or square storage containers to maximize storage, and to decant everything into containers of this shape (maybe excepting pickles, ketchup, etc if you can store those on the door.) Wash, trim, and prep all produce possible. Shop for produce often, since it takes a lot of space and some, like zucchini, doesn't store well prepped. If you do end up needing to cook something that simply needs more refrigerator space, like a turkey, a ham, a quiche, etc. try to make a friend in your neighborhood you can share with in exchange for a bit of whatever you need to store.

In a true pinch, when I was absolutely out of space for a defrosted turkey and it was too soon to cook (because then I'd need to store a cooked turkey) I filled my sink with ice and water and stored the wrapped raw turkey in ice water for a day or two, refreshing the ice as needed. Milk can be kept in the icy water, as can prepped veggies in ziplock bags. Of course, this makes washing dishes tricky, but it can be done with pans on the counter and dirty water being flushed in the bathroom. This whole lifestyle becomes a challenge in balancing small, frequent shopping and cooking with an eye to storage of leftovers, but it can be a lot of fun. It's larger gatherings that become challenging, but again, there are ways you can work with this, often by preparing things just in time for an event, rather than beforehand.
posted by citygirl at 6:44 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I got trays for my refrigerator shelves so that I can pull out the tray and everything on the shelf comes with it. That way nothing gets stuck at the back out of sight. It also makes clean up easier if something drips. This is convenient if you have a cluster of small jars. When they tray is pulled out you can spot which one of the jars you want, remove it from the tray and put everything but that jar back.

Rather than clear bins I like open topped ones. For me it is easier to pull the bin out and look down into it than it is to remove lids or peer through sides.

Keep in mind that you do need the ventilation so leave enough of the wire shelves uncovered so the air can circulate.

Try to use square jars and containers rather than round ones. They usually make better use of the space, but if you have round ones try to place them staggered so that the curve of one fits into the hollow between two other jars, rather than lining them all up to touch at their fattest points.

If you put sachets and pouches of things in there, a clip on the top holding them together will keep them from sliding around.

Knowing what you have and using it promptly helps conserve space. Plan ahead this way if you can so you never end up with half the ingredients for the salad you want being saved until you can get some lettuce.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:28 PM on September 4, 2021

I have one potentially useful tip that I arrived at not because I have a small fridge, but because I am lazy/have ADHD. When I pick up from my CSA on Saturdays I quickly get everything into a stable state in case I'm suddenly distracted and don't finish washing and putting things away. For all the greens and lettuces I trim the tips of the stems and put them in water in bowls, vases, mugs, etc. (my kitchen looks like a vegetable florist shop). And then I wash all the tomatoes and gourds and whatnot. At this point I usually do get distracted, sometimes for days. And that's how I know that lots of greens will live happily for a few days on your counter or table, and even more happily in a sunny window.

Things that don't work:
- Green onions and chives: they start to yellow and wilt within 24 hours
- Parsley: it will wilt despite the water, don't know why, although it also perks up quickly if you submerge it completely

Things that will last several days:
- Dill and basil: these are completely happy on the counter
- Chard, kale, endive, belgian endive, head lettuce
- Celery
- Nasturtiums: you can trim them and stick them in water and they will just keep pumping out flowers, in fact they seem to make more flowers. And both the flowers and leaves are great in salads.

Do be sure to trim the end of the stems, just like you would with a flower arrangement, since the stem won't soak up water once it has scarred over.

Many greens will also last a couple of days floating in water, so if you have space somewhere for a bowls of water, you can submerge smaller greens and lettuces, or those that have been cut from the stems. You'll want to change the water daily. This also works for snow peas and snap peas, and I'm guessing also green beans, just be sure there aren't any stem ends sticking out of the water. Maximum 2 days for snow and snap peas, though.

And finally, here's a fun one: if you submerge the stem end of cucumbers in water they will keep for several days, and I'm guessing this works for squashes as well. I wonder if it works for small peppers and chiles?

Caveat: I get 90% of my veggies from the CSA and my own roofdeck/windowsill "garden", so I'm working with pretty fresh vegetables. I don't know how well this will work for vegetables that have been out of the ground for days already.

However: Don't be too quick to give up on wilted greens. I've trimmed and submerged hanging-over-the-side-of-the-jar chard and kale and they perk right back up after a couple of hours. Rubbery snow and snap peas also get their snap back after being submerged for a couple of hours, and celery will also get it's crunch back if you trim the ends and submerge.
posted by antinomia at 1:37 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]