The Best Food Storage Containers (2023) for Leftovers, Meal Prep, and Bulk Goods | Bon Appétit

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Just like there’s the perfect cup for every saucer and an ideal knife for every chef, there’s the best food storage container for every leftover, prepped lunch, and bulk item—because you can’t store a chicken carcass in a mason jar, and while you could keep soup in a single-use zippered sandwich bag, don’t. To find out the ideal vessels for storing every imaginable type of food we gathered notes from our editors and contributors. These product testers, recipe developers, and test kitchen editores kept rigorous notes over years of storing leftover sauces, stews, and grains in our home kitchen and as part of the recipe development process in our test kitchen. Below are their top picks—based on years of testing and personal experience—for repackaging food to keep it fresher, longer.

Typical weeknight dinner situation: You made too much pasta with red sauce (on purpose) and you’re meting out the leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch. Skip the plastic containers and go with glass ones. You need a nonporous material that won’t turn a faint shade of red post-tomato sauce and an airtight seal so nothing leaks. BA contributor Anna Stockwell recommends the Oxo Good Grips Smart Seal glass food storage set because of its tight locking lids and silicone gaskets: “They seal really well, are freezer-safe, and they’re easy to clean. Plus, they’re made of oven-safe borosilicate glass,” which makes reheating leftover lasagna that much easier.

BA's food director Chris Morocco is also team glass “for frankly any food.” His pick for the best glass food storage containers? These GlassLock containers, which come in a range of sizes and have strong snap-on latches.

OXO Good Grips Smart Seal Glass Food Storage Container Set

Amazon (Set of 8)

Glasslock Oven Safe Container Set

Amazon (Set of 9)

These eco-friendly Zip Top bags helped BA contributor Sarah Jampel kick her longtime habit of cleaning, drying, and reusing plastic zipper storage bags. Made with a thick-but-flexible silicone and equipped with flat bottoms, Zip Top bags are durable, leakproof, and can stand upright without flopping over. Use them as a storage option for anything you’d typically use a plastic bag for: freezing fruits and veggies, decanting almost-empty pasta boxes, or even holding liquids.

Contributor Mehreen Karim is also a fan of these reusable Stasher bags, which have a super tight seal. She uses them for everything from packing sandwiches to saving cookie dough. Both Zip Top and Stasher bags come in a variety of sizes and are dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe, freezer-safe—but most importantly, they make great sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic bags.

Reusable Zip Top Storage Bags (Set of 3)

Amazon

Hive

Stasher Bags

Amazon (set of 4 small)

Amazon (half-gallon)

An extreme baking hobby becomes a lot more convenient when you’ve got an 8-quart Cambro container full of flour on deck. Contributor Alex Beggs keeps one on her countertop for her 10-pound bag of King Arthur’s all-purpose flour—and since they come in a number of different sizes, she stacks a 6-quart Cambro filled with granulated sugar right on top.

These containers also work wonders for storing bulk portions of other dry food like lentils, beans, and grains. If you’re one to buy 20–25-pound bags of rice, Beggs recommends this 13.21-quart Tellfresh airtight container, which has a hefty handle.

8-Quart Cambro Square Food Storage Container With Lid

Amazon

13.21-Quart Tellfresh Large Airtight Superstorer

Container Store

One of the most important factors in keeping your strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries fresh is making sure to not overcrowd them. You don’t want to use airtight food storage containers here; instead you’ll want to loosely pack them so they can “breathe.” For the easiest, most efficient storage, we recommend using a produce-specific storage container that promotes airflow. Our favorite is the Oxo Good Grips GreenSaver Produce Keeper, which has an elevated, removable basket that lifts produce away from the container walls and helps to maintain optimum moisture levels. It also has a carbon filter that absorbs ethylene gas (a plant hormone that speeds up the ripening and rotting process). For fresh dill, basil, and cilantro, BA contributor Hilary Cadigan loves Oxo’s GreenSaver Herb Keeper, which keeps herbs fresh for up to a month.

Oxo Produce Keeper

Amazon

Oxo Good Grips GreenSaver Herb Keeper

Amazon

Ever cut into an avocado and only need half of it? Of course you have! W&P reusable stretch lids and wraps have entered the chat to solve exactly this problem. Commerce editor Carina Finn tested W&P's wrap and produce saver set over the course of several months—and she was skeptical of the product at first, afraid they’d be unwieldy and wouldn’t stick to her food. “They were just as good as clingfilm at covering plates or wrapping pastry dough, and they were easy enough to clean with warm, soapy water,” Carina said in her review. At the end of testing, she opted to buy an even more comprehensive food storage set from them, because she loved using the produce savers so much.

The set features three designs. Stretchy reusable lids can be used to cover a variety of jars. Stretch them over bowls of pasta salad, cans of tomato paste, or whatever leftover you've got that you'd prefer not to decant into a lidded storage containers. The produce savers also come in a variety of sizes stretch over partially cut pieces of fruit like oranges or apples. And then there's a large rectangular wrap that can be used exactly like cling film to cover, say, a block of cheese or a small sheet pan. In testing, Carina found that this product was so much stickier than its main competitor, beeswax wrap, and also much easier to clean.

Reusable Stretch Lids

W&P

DEAL: Soopleu Set of 4 Reusable Storage Containers

DEAL:

Reusable Stretch Wrap

W&P

As part of our testing process, our editors are constantly trying new containers in their home kitchens. This is a lineup of some of our favorites in use in editor Emily Johnson's kitchen.

In our humble opinion, some of the best food storage containers with lids—or at least the best plastic ones—are practically free. “I use deli containers recycled from Indian food delivery, pickles from Russ & Daughters, and leftovers from the test kitchen,” says former test kitchen director and BA contributor Carla Lalli Music. They’re cheap, reliable, and standard in many restaurant kitchens for good reason. They're stackable and, best of all, the same plastic lid fits quart, pint, and half-pint containers alike. If you don’t order enough takeout to accumulate a proper stash, a set of 44 containers will run you $23.

DuraHome Food Storage Containers with Lids

Amazon (Set of 70)

Whether plastic containers are microwave- and dishwasher-safe is a matter of debate (we recommend hand-washing, but if you’re going to toss them into the dishwasher, at least use the top rack), but we love them for freezing; the quart size is perfect for storing big batches of stock in portions that are convenient for most recipes. We like to label ours with the contents and date using masking tape and a Sharpie.

Our test kitchen staff may be hopelessly devoted to standard deli containers for their convenience, price, and stacking capabilities, but there’s one thing we can’t ignore: Their cylindrical shape wastes a lot of space on refrigerator shelves. Unlike the round containers, square plastic food storage containers can be packed into fridges, freezers, and pantries in a more snug fashion. It’s simple geometry! Jampel loves these space-saving, BPA-free plastic square containers with leakproof lids. “They have all the benefits of cylindrical deli containers—lightweight, affordable but not disposable—and they also nestle into my shelves like puzzle pieces,” she says. They come in sets of 20, which makes them amazing meal prep containers.

16-oz. Square Clear Deli Containers with Lids (Set of 20)

Amazon

If you really want to up your food storage game, consider vacuum sealing, which will keep your food fresh for five times longer than their non-vacuum sealed counterparts. Our favorite vacuum sealer, the Zwilling Fresh & Save, works for everything from left over casseroles to avocado halves to spelt flour. Alex Beggs says there’s no better way to keep food fresh, and she can confirm that it extends the shelf life of her food by days to weeks to even months. This high-tech food storage system consists of a rechargeable handheld vacuum pump and its own high-quality containers—you can choose between sturdy plastic, borosilicate glass, or reusable plastic bags. We recommend the starter set, which is available with either hard plastic or glass and includes a medium container, a large container, two small vacuum sealer bags, and two medium vacuum sealer bags. You can also purchase different containers—like this bento-style lunchbox—à la carte if you want. A few of Beggs’s fave things to vacuum seal: frozen berries, rice salad, ham hocks, and entire loaf cakes.

Zwilling Fresh & Save

Zwilling – 7 Piece Set

Amazon – 6 Piece Set

A food storage container set that doubles as a set of drinking glasses? Count us in. “I have a jar hoarding problem and save most coconut oil/ghee/peanut butter/jam jars for storing salad dressings and uncooked rice,” says Carla Lalli Music. Wide-mouth canisters are great for grains while smaller half-cup containers will do just fine for sauces and dressings.

Ball Wide Mouth Mason Jars, 16 oz

Amazon (set of 12)

Target (set of 12)

Ball Regular Mouth Mason Jars, 4 oz

Amazon (Set of 12)

Anna Stockwell replaces the two-part canning lid on Mason jars with these plastic tops, which are easier to clean and make it less likely that you’ll have vinaigrette leakage all over your lunch box.

Ball Leakproof Mason Jar Lids

Amazon

Stocking up on a giant tin of Frantoia olive oil is a great investment, but it’s almost impossible to pour a tablespoon straight from its container. You could transfer the oil to a fancy cruet, but a humble squeeze bottle is your best bet for everyday cooking. The flexible plastic is clear, which could potentially make the olive oil go rancid more quickly, but if you’re cooking with olive oil a couple times a day you’ll go through the bottle faster than you think.

16 Oz. Squeeze Dispensers

Amazon (Pack of 6)

If you want your kitchen cabinets to look like a Pinterest board, then boy do we have the pantry storage for you. But they're not all style and no substance. Cliik containers have cleverly designed magnetized lids that snap comfortably onto each jar. They're also square-shaped and magnetized on the side, so they also attach to the lids of other Cliik containers. While Cliik says you can use the containers for storing edible and nonedible items just about anywhere, commerce writer Wilder Davies, who tested these containers in his home kitchen for several months, prefers to line them up in his cabinets for playful and colorful pantry decanting. “If you are a fan of Italian Modernism, have a lot of little things to put in jars, and appreciate a nostalgic color palette, Cliik containers are for you,” Wilder said in his review of the Cliik containers. The magnetized lids also kept foods fresh and weren't as prone to breaking or damage like many of the storage containers we've tried have been. Wilder has also noted that many mechanisms for locking lids into place on food storage containers can be shockingly difficult to attach. Not so with these magnetic-lidded guys. And okay, yes, they're stylish. “Cliik containers add a touch of visual perfection that any prop stylist would envy, and that alone is worth something,” he said in his review.

Cliik Container 3-Pack, Medium

Cliik

Cliik Container 3-Pack, Family

Cliik

We make a lot of food in our test kitchen, which means we have a lot of leftovers. Over the course of years of recipe developing, our editors have taken notes on the best storage methods for all kinds of ingredients. We've offered their favorites in many, many categories in this review, honed over those years of testing—because the best way to store herbs is not the same as the best way to store leftover rice. We've also used every kind of food storage container in our home kitchens. And our editors are always on the lookout for new, market-disrupting storage containers that challenge the classic plastic deli container solution. We make sure we get our hands on all of those prettily pastel-colored direct-to-consumer storage container solutions and try them against the old pros in our home kitchens, and sometimes, like in the case of W&P Porter's storage set or Cliik's innovative magnetic lid design, they actually win. We will continue to update this review with new storage containers we like as we find them.

This story was originally published in 2017 and was updated by Tiffany Hopkins in 2023 and Megan Wahn in 2024.