These $45 Hanging Storage Baskets Keep My Counter Clear of Produce

When it comes to maintaining an organized and functional kitchen, keeping the counters clear is one of my top goals. Clear counters make the kitchen feel clean and orderly, and, more practically, they also maximize space for cooking and cleanup. 

That’s why I keep my knives in an in-drawer knife block and why I had a pull-out utensil cabinet built into our new kitchen. I’m vigilant about keeping paper clutter off the counter, too. The only things that live out on the countertops are soap, sponges, some decorative but also functional cutting boards, the dish rack, and the KitchenAid mixer. 

Another category of items that often end up taking up space on kitchen counters is produce. I do like the idea of a nice bowl of apples out and ready to grab (especially during the fall season!), but when it comes down to it, I don’t enjoy the visual clutter of potatoes, tomatoes, citrus, onions, and other produce that doesn’t go in the fridge — or the counter space they take up. 

Instead, I like to store my unrefrigerated produce in the pantry. This was easy in our old house, where the pantry was relatively small, but had such a space-maximizing corner layout. I stored our produce in small baskets set on the floor in the corner and it worked great. The pantry in our new house, however, is a tricky configuration. The pantry itself is quite deep, and the shelves, which start pretty far back in the space, are deep as well. Figuring out how to use this pantry so things don’t get buried and lost has been a challenge and, consequently, space has been at a premium. 

I quickly realized I needed to use the vertical space on the walls. On one side, I put narrow shelving that holds boxes of tea. On the other, I had room to put something wider. Because I still needed a solution for storing produce, I set out to look for a wall-mounted set of baskets, not knowing if such an item even existed. 

Well, they do exist! The exact one I got on Amazon is no longer in stock, but these are a similar, nearly identical set of hanging produce baskets I highly recommend. 

I mounted them on the wall in my pantry and stored onions, potatoes, and garlic on the bottom, tomatoes and other produce in the middle, and bakery items on the top. The open mesh is tight enough to keep items contained (including loose onion skin!) but open enough to allow for air circulation. 

The shelves are perfectly sized: They are big enough not only to store a respectable amount of items, but also to access those items easily. At the same time, they’re small enough that my family doesn’t have to dig for items and the unit doesn’t stick too far out from the wall. 

Another thing I love about hanging baskets is how versatile they are. If I wanted to switch to stacking the baskets on the floor or a shelf, I could, and I could also separate them into single or double baskets. If I wanted to expand the unit by adding more to the top or bottom, I could do that too.

My favorite detail is that they come with multiple S-hooks. These hooks have made the baskets exceptionally more functional and eke even more vertical space out of the entire setup. I use the hooks on one side of the unit to hang our aprons, and I use them on the other side to hang bunches of bananas and sometimes bags of garlic, shallots, or ginger. These smaller items don’t get lost or squished and I can get to them readily. 

Hanging storage baskets have exceeded my expectations. They not only solved my produce storage needs, but they’ve also gone above and beyond by being more useful and multipurpose than I imagined! I’m thinking of adding another unit to the wall.