The Genius Egg Carton Hack That Will Bring Harmony To Your Cluttered Fridge

A cluttered refrigerator is the bane of all people who need to eat food on a regular basis (hint: that's everyone). Between raw cooking ingredients, pre-prepared meal packages, cartons of leftovers, and bulky tools such as water filter pitchers, there's continually more to organize in the fridge as you go about your day-to-day.  Decluttering your fridge is a good first step toward making headway on larger organization projects. Cleanliness in one of the most-visited spots can make things feel more stress-free, especially since an organized refrigerator is ridiculously satisfying. For instance, just 30 minutes of clearing out expired foodstuffs and putting your fridge back into shape every week can also offer a chance for taking stock of what's left, reducing overall food waste that contributes to global warming.

Luckily, there's one innocuous object you likely add to your refrigerator every week that opens up a quick and easy hack to declutter that array of condiment bottles for ketchup, mustard, barbeque sauce, and so much more: an egg carton. Specifically, this trick — as shared on an episode of Food Network star Rachael Ray's talk show, the aptly named "Rachael Ray Show" — utilizes common cardboard cartons found in most every grocery store nationwide. Once the animal product has gone toward anything from cakes to an array of worldly scrambled egg recipes, the hack is an incredibly simple home project.

After your egg carton is carefully split along its hinges by a pair of scissors, or perhaps a box cutter, it becomes a tray with empty spaces that should be perfect for the tapered neck of a plastic squeeze bottle. For a standard 12-egg carton, you'll be able to set condiments in two neat rows, perhaps organizing them so your most-used ketchup sits closer to the front than a specialty horseradish sauce. Among the best aspects of this fridge decluttering hack is it's adjustable to different carton sizes should you buy six or 18 eggs at a time, though the 18-egg carton may not be able to fit in some refrigerator door shelves. 

Though the "Rachael Ray Show" notes a standard egg carton can be tucked into a refrigerator's door, larger trays may instead have to be set on a fridge's main shelf. This egg carton hack addresses one of many mistakes you're probably making with your refrigerator by not dividing your shelves into "zones" that make finding and retrieving certain goods easier. 

Recycling an empty egg carton for this declutter hack is also a boon for sustainability efforts, utilizing every part of the proverbial buffalo. The other half of the carton saved for this condiment holster can then be utilized for additional projects such as a DIY bird feeder that can hang off a tree by cutting holes in each corner of an egg carton tray to hold some string. If you've caught a cleaning bug, organizing your refrigerator's condiment bottles with an egg carton seems like an easy first step.