Our Favorite Yamazaki Home Products for Organizing the Kitchen

If there’s a storage or organizational solution you haven’t seen yet, rest assured Yamazaki Home is probably working on it. The Japanese brand is more than a century old, but over the past few years its presence has grown considerably in the U.S. And many of us around the Bon Appétit office have become big fans of Yamazaki Home and its focus on small space living. Our kitchens are overflowing with equipment, cookbooks, and new ingredients, which makes space conscious organizing solutions a must.

Yamazaki Home has plenty of those—perhaps too many. The product line is massive and covers every room in the house. Frankly, it’s more than anyone can or should have to go through, so we perused the catalog and investigated the showroom to find products that most directly addressed our organizing needs to create a list of recommendations we think can really make a difference in organizing your kitchen. Even with their little quirks and flaws, they certainly made a difference in ours. One thing to note: many of these products are versatile by nature, and we kept that in mind as we evaluated each one, keeping an eye out for how these products might be of use in all corners of the house.

Vertical Bread Box

The vertical bread box essentially acts as an extension of my kitchen cabinets. As someone who doesn’t have a separate pantry, it’s become my go-to place to stash any open bags of snacks, stray individually-wrapped chocolates and candies, and, yes, bread. I love it for a few reasons: The internal shelf helps me organize its contents, the white finish and wood handle look great in my kitchen, and it’s got a magnetic closure that’s *incredibly* satisfying. It’s earned a permanent spot on the little square of countertop to the right of my stove—a spot that’s pretty unusable for anything other than appliance storage or clutter—but I could see it being just as at home in a bathroom or perched on a bedroom desk or vanity. —Alaina Chou, commerce producer

Plate rack

Yamazaki's plate rack helped me solve a highly specific problem that plagued me every day. Before I owned this plate rack, I simply kept my plates, from different sets, of different sizes, in stacks in my cupboard. Ideally (after one of my monthly organization binges) the plates would live in separate piles in the cabinet. But that reaching around and rearranging piles constantly. I'd often get lazy putting away dishes and end up with a structurally unsound, tottering pile of small and large plates. I’d have to stack and restack that pile to get the one that I wanted.

This plate rack changed all that. It contains three sections, so you can keep various sets of plates separate from one another. It accommodates both larger dinner plates and smaller salad plates and stores them vertically, suspended between two silicone-wrapped bars that make them feel very secure. Since plates are sectioned off by type, it's super easy to grab the exact plate you need quickly without disrupting the other plates in any way. My cabinet has remained so much more organized, and because Yamazaki's stuff is sleek and minimal looking, I'd feel fine about storing this plate rack on open shelving, as well. —Emily Johnson, commerce director

Riser shelf

Before these riser shelves came into my life, I was dealing with an overflowing pantry that would spit pasta boxes and cracker bags onto my face every time I opened the door. I would shove things in willy nilly, without any thought of order; I just had to make it all fit. The risers help me establish order. My pantry has three shelves—and the first and last for some reason are taller than the middle shelf. With these two risers, I'm able to use that height to my advantage and create more space to store my snacks and boxed or canned goods so I don't get hit in the face every time I want to make mac and cheese. —Megan Wahn, associate editor

Expandable kitchen riser

These risers work much like the risers above, but the key difference is that you can adjust their length. The expandability came in handy when trying to fit the three people’s worth of coffee mugs that exist in my apartment. Instead of precariously stacking them like ill-fitting Russian nesting dolls, we were able to utilize the little bit of unused vertical space we had to safely store them all—no stacking necessary. I was initially worried about the weight limitations, but the shelf managed our mugs with ease. —MW

Storage containers

This set of three storage container drawers is super cute, and I love that they come with their own labels. But I did find the size a little weird: too big for spices and a bit too small for flour and sugar. They hold 22 ounces, which is only about a quarter bag of flour. I ended up using the drawers to store homemade batches of granola, and it was convenient to pull the container out by the handle and use the included little scoop to sprinkle granola over fruit and yogurt. I also used them to store dried fruits and nuts. It was a satisfying little breakfast bowl setup. —EJ

Slim Storage Cart

As a frequent dinner party host, I’ve found myself the reluctant owner of far too many miscellaneous bottles of liquor over the years. I was hoping Yamazaki’s slim storage cart could be a space-saving (and chic-looking) solution, and so far I’d say it’s scored an 8 out of 10 as a makeshift bar cart. I love how skinny it is (hence the name) and that it tucks right in next to my mini fridge. The multiple levels also mean I can stash a fair amount of alcohol on it. The only downside is that it doesn’t offer enough clearance for particularly tall bottles. —AC

Sponge and Bottle Holder

As someone who stored her dish and hand soap directly on the counter, the Yamazaki sponge and bottle holder has been a game changer for me. No more bottles getting knocked over or sponges getting misplaced: Now all of my dishwashing essentials have a home. The open steel frame and angled spout underneath the holder ensures any errant drips stream right into the sink, too, which means I’ve been able to kiss the (inevitably gross) puddles of water sloshing around behind my sink goodbye. —AC

Rolling Trash Can

This trash can is simple, effective, airtight, and lightweight, which is really all I could’ve asked of it. It’s a far more sanitary option than the open bin I keep under the sink, but I will say that having to manually open the lid every time I use it has kept me from designating it my primary kitchen trash can. Because it’s airtight, it can require a bit more force and coordination to open than I can manage while in weeknight dinner chaos mode. Instead I’ve been using it as a recycling bin, a role in which it’s fared pretty well so far. It has a handy stainless steel ring at the top that keeps trash bags from budging and makes swapping them out easy. —AC

Countertop Drawer with Pull-Out Shelf

I recently moved from a house to an apartment and the biggest challenge has been fitting all of my gear into a smaller kitchen. So I was really excited to see this steel countertop drawer that promised to provide extra space to stash my utensils while also serving as a platform for my bulky but beloved countertop oven. In fact, I was so excited that I didn’t measure a damn thing and didn’t realize until the Yamazaki box showed up at my door that my oven is about four inches wider than the drawer. But all is not lost, because it turned out to be the perfect perch for my compact Canon printer. I now store copy paper and other office supplies in the drawer, and I pull out the little shelf when I’m printing multi-page documents just in case any of the pages go flying (which they tend to do with this cheap printer). —Emily Farris, senior writer

Yamazaki Tower Sliding Drawer Seasoning Rack

The cabinets in my new kitchen are generous, but the layout is awkward; the space was definitely not designed by someone who does a lot of cooking. I hoped this slender upright drawer would make it easy for me to keep oils and seasonings near my cooktop, but I don’t have a lot of counter space on that wall and it was either this drawer or my nugget ice maker. I made my decision (the ice maker, duh) and because this wouldn’t really work anywhere else (it just felt so much bigger than I thought it would), I repurposed it elsewhere. Now, I have two tiers of storage—and a new home for my pot lids—in the slim lower cabinet I use for sheet pans, cooling racks, and my cast iron griddle. Full disclosure: I ended up ditching the drawer and just use this like a really tall riser. —EF

Bread Box with Cutting Board

I’ve been using this bread box for several months and as a bread box it is everything I want: capable of fitting multiple loaves or a mix of loaves and buns, looks handsome on the counter, keeps things mold-free over long humid stretches, and feels quite durable. The only thing that’s a bit of a bummer is the cutting board lid. It’s so small and lightweight that it doesn’t work all that well to cut what the box is holding. Also, knife marks show, so too much use will downgrade the aesthetics considerably. However, if you’ll be happy having a bread box lid that is simply a bread box lid, this is a terrific addition to the kitchen. —Noah Kaufman, senior editor

Stackable Vegetable Storage Boxes

As someone who sometimes has a hard time finding everything he has purchased, the movable dividers in these storage boxes have turned out to be a real storage plus. I’m easily able to keep my big onions totally separate from my garlic, shallots, and ginger, which means they never get lost in a pile of Vidalias or yellow onions. —NK

Adjustable Lid Organizer

I’ve used lid racks before and every single one has irritated me because my pots and pans come from different brands with differently shaped lids. That’s meant that, while I might be able to fit the lid to my pasta pot, my All-Clad sauce pan and Staub Dutch oven were lost causes in the fixed layout of those lid holders that shall not be named. Because I can adjust every single section of Yamazaki’s I’ve been able to keep everything I have nice and organized. —NK

Collapsible Bottle Drier

Considering how simple this product is, the change it’s produced in my dish drying set up has been significant. Designed for drying water bottles upside down, it is great for small bowls, jars, and reusable vacuum sealing bags too. You can also place lids and cutting boards between its prongs. Basically it’s just two U-shaped pieces of metal hinged at the bottom that stands up when you need to use it and can easily be folded, collapsed, and put away into a drawer when you don’t need it. Frankly though, there’s never a time where I’m not getting some use out of it. —Wilder Davies, staff writer

Vacuum-Sealing Butter Dish

I was a little skeptical of this butter dish at first, because it doesn’t create a vacuum seal in the same way a Zwilling Fresh and Save would. This little white box has a small rubber plunger you press in on top to initiate the seal. It managed to keep both butter and cheese in my fridge fresher for longer than when I don’t seal them. I actually found the airtight seal of this container great for storing stinkier cheeses with odors you don’t want floating around the fridge. I also used it as a to-go container for carrot sticks and cucumbers. When sealed, the lid stays on remarkably well, with no leaks. The containers also stack up in an impressively modular way, like something out of the Svalbard Seed Vault. All in all, they compare favorably to the plastic storage containers I typically rely on, and are useful for much more than butter. —WD