How many food storage containers do you need?

The count, by how you actually eat

Two things fall out of that table. First, the person taking lunch to work needs more small containers than anything else, and almost every 20-piece bargain set is weighted the other way. Second, the batch cook should not buy a mixed set at all: the whole value of meal prep is that twenty identical boxes stack in the fridge as one block.

The sizes, and what each one is for

• 1 to 2 cups (small). Half an avocado, a portion of rice, cut fruit, last night’s sauce. The most used and most under-bought size.
• 3 to 4 cups (medium). A single meal. This is the lunch size, and the one that has to actually seal if it travels in a bag.
• 6 to 7 cups (large). A batch of chili, a cooked chicken, a salad for four. Two or three is plenty — large containers are what eat shelf space.
• Flat and wide rather than tall. In a small fridge, shelf area is what you run out of first and height what you run out of last. Flat containers stack; tall ones tip.

Where a dozen containers go in a small kitchen

This is the part that makes people under-buy, so it is worth being concrete. A dozen containers do not live as a dozen containers — they nest.

1. Bodies nested, lids filed on edge. Nest the bodies inside each other and stand the lids up in a row like books, largest at the back. A dozen containers then occupies about the footprint of a cereal box.
2. One shelf, not one drawer. Drawers make you lift lids out of a pile. A shelf lets you file them, which is the difference between a tidy cupboard in week one and a lid avalanche in week three.
3. In a studio, the large ones double as pantry storage. Rice, pasta and flour in sealed containers rather than open bags is the only reliable answer to pantry pests in an older building.

If the cupboard is already full, the honest fix is a shelf riser rather than fewer containers — the same trick that works for under-sink storage one room over.

Four days, and the other published rules

Three rules decide how many containers are in circulation, and they are not opinions:

• Leftovers keep three to four days in the fridge. USDA guidance is three to four days at 40°F or below — so containers filled on Sunday have to be emptied or frozen by Wednesday or Thursday. That, not the cupboard, is the real cap on batch cooking.
• Cool it fast, in shallow containers. Dividing a big pot between several shallow containers is the USDA-recommended way to get hot food through the temperature danger zone quickly. It is also the practical argument for owning more medium containers than large ones.
• Lids are the part that fails. Latches, gaskets and snap rims wear out long before the bodies do, which is why a set is worth judging by its lid rather than its piece count.

So what to buy

• Default, one or two people: a leak-proof plastic set in the 10-piece range. Light enough to leave the house, and the lids actually seal.
• You reheat at home: glass. No plastic against hot food, and the bodies double as small bakeware.
• Glass on a budget: snap-lid glass. Airtight rather than leak-proof, which is fine for food that never leaves the fridge.
• You batch cook: twenty identical containers, and nothing else.

The full ranking with every spec is in the best food storage containers, and if you are still deciding between materials, glass versus plastic is the page for that.