Should a storage container be glass or plastic?

Glass and plastic storage containers have their advantages in different places, and there is no single right answer between them. What decides the choice is less the material itself than the job that container will do in the kitchen.

Where does glass come out ahead?

Glass does not hold odor or color. Tomato sauce, curry or a heavily spiced dish stored in glass leaves the container as it was; the same dish can leave a mark in plastic. That property matters in homes where the same containers will be used for different dishes over a long time.

Glass also goes straight into the oven and most heating methods, which removes the step of transferring. Being see-through is a separate advantage; you can see what is inside without opening the lid, and the number of containers forgotten in the fridge drops.

Glass does not wear out over time either. A glass container used for years keeps the surface it had on the first day; it does not scratch or go cloudy, and as long as its lid holds it does not lose its function. Over the long run that means buying fewer containers and letting less surplus pile up in the cupboard.

What is the advantage of plastic?

Plastic is light and does not break. For a meal to be carried in a bag, a container a child will take to school or a box to be used while travelling, those two properties come ahead of all the advantages of glass.

The space it takes up is different too. Plastic containers usually nest inside one another and take very little room in the cupboard when empty; glass containers take up the same volume empty as full. In small kitchens that difference affects the daily order directly.

Plastic is more useful in the freezer as well. A liquid that fills a container expands as it freezes and that calls for care in glass containers; plastic containers are more forgiving on this point and stack better.

What goes in which container?

A practical division can be set up like this: dishes that will sit a long time in the fridge or freezer, and dishes that are strong-smelling or oily, go into glass; meals that will be carried, opened and closed often and need to be light go into plastic.

This division also reduces the number of containers. Instead of buying a separate set for every job, keeping a few of each kind is enough for most kitchens. Choosing containers of the same size makes stacking and matching lids easier.

If you think about the job a container will do while buying it, waste drops too. First look at which job repeats most often in your kitchen; in most homes it is putting leftovers away and carrying meals, so a few containers of each kind cover most of the need.

Why are the lids the real problem?

Kitchens rarely run short of containers; what is missing is usually the lid. Lids from different sets bought at different times do not fit one another, and over time containers without lids pile up at the back of the cupboard.

The easiest way to prevent that is to buy several containers from the same line rather than a variety. Keeping the lids upright in a separate box also shortens the time spent searching; hunting for a lid is one of the most common reasons for putting off storing leftovers.

Storing the lid attached to the container is another method, but it takes up more space. In small kitchens keeping the lids separate is clearly more efficient, because the containers nest inside one another; what matters is that the lids are always in the same place.

When are containers replaced?

Containers that are scratched, whose lids no longer close fully or whose color has changed permanently have lost their function. A container that leaks cannot be used for a meal that will be carried; a lid that does not close fully both spreads odor in the fridge and dries the food out.

Keeping the number of containers limited makes that replacement easier. Enough containers to fit on one shelf of the cupboard is enough; every new container that does not fit usually turns into surplus that waits unused and makes the order harder to keep.

Nor do you have to throw worn containers out at once. A container that has lost its lid can be used in the kitchen as a measuring bowl, a prep bowl or a bowl for separating ingredients; being out of the storage job does not make it useless, it only turns it into the work of another shelf.