Despite the fact that we’re well into November at this point, I have yet to do a single thing to get my kitchen ready for the rapidly approaching holidays. If you haven’t either, then at least we’re in good company, and it isn’t to late to get ready either!
In fact, I’ve broken it down into a handful of the most important tasks. Tackle one task at a time, and soon enough, your kitchen will be in tip-top shape for the holidays, regardless of how grand or intimate your gatherings will be.
11 Tips To Get Your Kitchen Ready For The Holidays
1. Clear Out Old Food
Clear out any old food items (especially anything past its best-by date) from your pantry, fridge, and freezer. Not only will you get rid of all those expired or unwanted things that are taking up valuable shelf space, but you’ll free up room for incoming ingredients and future culinary creations.
Be sure to clean up any sticky messes if your fridge or on your shelves if you happen to have any. (This isn’t strictly related to holiday prep, but you’re already moving things around so it’s a good opportunity to take care of those messes!)
If you’re freezer’s feeling crowded, take things out of their bulky packaging to free up more space. Discard foods that show signs of freezer burn. If you have an older freezer that needs to be defrosted on occasion, you can probably gain some valuable storage space by defrosting it now.
2. Check Your Spice Cupboard
Go through your spice cupboard and check the best-by dates on everything you know you’ll use for your holiday dishes. When in doubt, spices that are over a year old could probably use replacing, as well as any that don’t smell like much of anything when you open them.
Here are some spices commonly used during holiday cooking to look for and restock as necessary:
- Poultry seasoning
- Thyme
- Rosemary
- Sage
- Parsley
- Garlic
- Nutmeg
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
- Vanilla extract
3. Clean Your Oven And Dishwasher
Your oven and dishwasher are likely to get a workout in the coming weeks, so you want to make sure they’re relatively clean and in good working order for the holidays. If your oven or dishwasher is looking particularly grimy, check out my tutorials detailing how to clean each here:
4. Inventory Your Cookware
Making sure you have all the cookware you need (and that you know where it all is) can go a long way toward making your holiday meals more efficient. Start by taking an inventory of your pots and pans—do you know where your roaster is, and where all the lids to your pots are?
Another good thing to do is check out your cookware for cracks, chips, or broken pieces so you know what needs replacing.
5. Wash Your Tableware And Linens
Since a lot of our holiday pieces only comes out once or twice a year, they might be a bit dusty. It’s a good idea to pull out any special dishes, glassware, flatware and serving pieces and give them a good wash—doing it ahead of time will ensure you’re not trying to wash a bunch of large dishes during the hustle and bustle of food prep.
Take the time to wash and iron your tablecloths and napkins too. If you like to use candles on your holiday table, make sure you have enough on hand and a lighter or matches to light them with.
6. Get Rid Of Clutter
If you’re anything like me, once the cooking begins in earnest, you need all the counter space you can get! To help free up more workspace, go through your kitchen and remove extra items from countertops, tables and shelves to declutter.
Put all these things into a storage bin or closet so you can get them back out and replace them after the holidays. With your temporarily pared-down kitchen, you’ll have the room you need to cook and bake your holiday meals to perfection.
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7. Sharpen Your Knives
Don’t settle for hacking up your turkey with a dull carving knife—take the time to sharpen it beforehand, along with your other go-to kitchen knives. Use either a sharpening steel, a knife sharpener, or take your knives to a local knife shop and get them sharpened by a professional.
8. Stock Up On The Basics
I find that if I’m going to forget about something, it’s not usually the ingredients or the table settings—it’s those everyday housewares that I didn’t think to check on! Save yourself some time and stress by making sure you have plenty of those everyday necessities. (For instance, you don’t want to finish up a big holiday meal and realize you’re out of dishwasher detergent!)
Not everyone will need all of these things, but here’s a general list of household basics you can check your stock of:
- Trash bags
- Kitchen string
- Aluminum foil
- Plastic wrap
- Ziplock bags
- Cheesecloth
- Dish soap
- Dishwasher detergent
- Toothpicks
- Batteries
- Coffee filters
- Paper towels
- Napkins
9. Give Your Kitchen A Safety Inspection
Whether or not you’ll be expecting little ones in your home for the holidays, making sure your kitchen is safe is a smart move! But if you are expecting little ones over, you’ll want to ensure they can’t get a hold of any potentially harmful objects, such as matches, lighters, sharp utensils and household cleaners, by storing them cupboards with safety latches.
And everyone should make sure they have a functional fire extinguisher and smoke detector in their kitchen. And speaking of smoke detectors, take the time to test all the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors in your house to make sure they’re working correctly. Better safe than sorry!
10. Give Your Appliances A Checkup
Check each appliance you plan to use, including your microwave, stove, oven, refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, crockpots, food processor, mixer and blender, to make sure they’re working and ready for action. As you assess each appliance, clean anything that could use it.
It’s also worth checking your oven temperature to make sure it’s heating up to the correct temperature. Learn more about calibrating and adjusting your oven at the link below.
Read More: How To Calibrate Your Oven For Better Baking
11. Consider Setting Up A Drinks Station
One thing I find helpful during holiday dinners is setting up water, sodas, and any other beverages out of the main kitchen area. That way, people can help themselves to drinks without creating a traffic jam for those of us who are working in the kitchen.
You can do this for the duration of the season, which may be especially useful if you’ll have guests staying with you for the holidays. Set up an easily accessible beverage station with your coffee maker and coffee, water kettle and tea, and all the add-ins too. Put it in your living room, dining room, or wherever makes the most sense in your house so that guests can help themselves without crowding the kitchen.
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Do you do anything special to get your home ready for the holidays?
When I host Thanksgiving, I always let others bring something to share. Not quite a potluck, but everyone has their special dish they like to make, eat and share and it adds to the richness of the occasion (no one is required to bring something, but it seems they always want to!)
Please log in or create a free account to comment.If you have kids, and your meal is scheduled a bit late, it’s good to have something simple to serve them a few hours before the meal (like mac & cheese).
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Speaking of which, don’t be so busy you forget to eat yourself! I get very cranky when I’m hungry. I’d rather eat less at the main meal than be cranky beforehand because I’m so hungry.
Try to be in the moment. Relax. Enjoy your guests and let it roll. =)
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Go buy up all those bags of Candy Corn in all the yummy flavors. Dump them in a hurricane jar and make a cute label that says “Turkey Toes” and put them out for everyone to snack on at Thanksgiving for a little something sweet.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Put all your table setup stuff in a box prior to go day. Ironed linens, polished silverware, napkin rings, list of guests, etc… This way you just move inventoried box in day of event and it’s instant setup without the worry. Better yet, assign this setup task to someone else.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Keep the room is little on the dark side so the Christmas lights sparkle brightly and don’t mix the Tom & Jerry’s too strong!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.An hour and a half before I have to put the turkey in the oven, I bake a Pecan Pumpin Crunch. It is always a hit for dessert and it makes the house smell like heaven. And it’s easy to make!!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I always have things like crayons to keep the kids busy and some wine to keep the cooks happy.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I make as much as I can ahead! Also, use homemade stock if you can- the natural gelatin is good for your bones and your stock will make everything taste so much better and adds less sneaky sodium! It is frightening how much salt is in those cans of stock on the grocery shelves.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Plan ahead! Procrastination does not but stress you out.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I do as much make ahead as I can (meals for this week were done in the crockpot and frozen last week, so I don’t have to cook dinner and can focus on cleaning; make a couple batches of cookies and freeze; set up appetizer trays Wednesday evening and stack in the fridge). Wednesday night we watch the Grinch while I make pies – this means the kids are up late, so they will sleep in and mom can get the turkey in the oven early before anyone is up.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.At my house every family brings their signature dish so no one person does the bulk of cooking.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Keep it simple..its easy to go overboard..simple holidays leave room for memories to be made and joy to be lived!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I used to spend days prepping and cooking, and now as much as I hate to admit it, I order dinner from the store. The best part about having it delivered, I have more time to take photos. I have some of the best photos…
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Be okay with delegating to others, be okay with “preparing” some foods instead of “making” all of them, be thankful for anyone who helps clean up!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I made a Christmas scrapbook as far back in the family that I could go. I included family member’s favorite dishes, favorite memories, events, other customs and trends.(How some trees with decorated in the 70’s was interesting) I pull it out each year. It’s fun to remember with family and find out what other families did. It’s a great conversation starter. I even included trivia and guess that greenery pages.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.My advice is to get together with family and split everything up so you are only in charge of one or two things.i love it.it is so much more relaxinand enjoyable. thanks for doing another giveaway!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Make a chart with cooking times and temperatures of your planned food. With only one oven, I need to choose things with similar cooking temperatures. Learned this lesson the hard way! :-)
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I always go grocery shopping the beginning of December, and stock up on all of the things I will need for Christmas. This makes the holidays a lot more enjoyable for me, when I have everything I need and I don’t need to fight the crowds.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I like to spread the work out over the week before the Holiday, especially the cleaning. If guests are staying with us, I tackle one room a night to get everything cleaned and prepped for our company.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.After I plan the meal and shop for all ingredients needed, I group the non perishables together for each dish and place them in the bakeware or casserole dish I am cooking them in a week . Several days before I start making the dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls and then freeze them. If I make lasagna, I make the sauce in advance (a few days)and then assemble the lasagna the day before and refrigerate. The table is set the night before and is ready to go. I have a cheat sheet on the fridge and mark off each item and chore once it’s done. for 30 years this has been a life saver for me!!!!!!!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I like to set the table the night before so as one less thing to do the day of.
Also, check out the dollar store for plastic containers so guests can take home leftovers!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.My favorite holiday tip is to have a few planned activities for the kids. A treasure hunt complete with clues as riddles can keep kids busy for a while! The older kids now like to help the young ones solve the riddle to get to the next clue. When the weather is going to be bad I plan a craft. Funny how the adults tend to be gathered around the craft table!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I recommend finding as many recipes as you can that can cook in a crock pot. I have almost all my side dishes set up for the slow cooker. When the big day comes I don’t have to worry about timing everything in the oven and stovetop.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.For a less stressful day, I do pot luck so that I don’t have to worry about managing multiple dishes.
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