8 Clever Uses For Dish Racks That You Should Try In Your Kitchen

The dish rack in most kitchens is a staple, one that blends into the kitchen sink area without being given a second thought. When the time comes to bring in a new style or when the old one moves past its prime, they most often end up in the bin. With a bit of creativity, though, this humble tool can become a multitasking organizer, helping you declutter, streamline, and optimize your kitchen space.

The beauty of a dish rack lies in its simplicity. It's uncomplicated makeup — rows of evenly spaced slats or dividers — makes it perfect for storage or for drying more than just the dishes. Whether it's a plastic, metal, or wooden rack, they are relatively adaptable for all kinds of uses in your kitchen space. All it takes is a little imagination and a willingness to rethink how to reuse old kitchen items at home.

From taming chaotic spice drawers to using it for your veggies, you'll be surprised by how many uses this simple kitchen item can have. In this article, we shine a light on a few ways that you can repurpose your old kitchen dish rack. The good news is that you won't need any complex tools to try these ideas for yourself.

It's a fairly universal experience to walk into the kitchen of a home with a young family to find kiddies' plates, bowls, and cups overflowing in the dish rack or tossed unceremoniously into the drawer. A life with young kids can present all sorts of daily challenges, and how their plastic eating and drinking goodies are stored is not exactly a priority to most. It doesn't have to be complicated, though — all you need is that old dish rack.

What's great about a dish rack is that they are designed to hold kitchen cutlery and crockery of all sizes. The rack's dividers are perfect for stacking those awkwardly shaped plastic plates and sippy cups upright, keeping everything visible and within arm's reach. If you place the rack into your cabinet, not only will it be out of sight and out of mind, but also organized.

This hack is especially useful if you have a low cabinet shelf where kids can grab their own dishes, promoting a bit of independence during mealtimes. You can even color-code or group dishes by category — plates in one row, bowls in another, and cups neatly lined up on the side. It's a budget-friendly kitchen tool that takes seconds to set up but will save you countless moments of frustration in the long run. For busy parents juggling morning routines, every little bit of order helps, especially if you're looking to avoid playing a game of dishware Jenga every time you open the cabinet.

A cluttered spice drawer can make cooking more stressful than it needs to be. If you're constantly rummaging for that elusive jar of cumin or the herbs that all have the same colored wrapping, it's time to bring order to the dish rack spice drawer hack. A basic dish rack can easily be repurposed to hold spice jars at an angle, creating a tiered system that allows you to see all your spices at a glance.

For a metal or plastic dish rack, simply place it in your drawer and add the spices in. If it's an old wooden dish rack with pins, take it apart (these are usually just held together with two pieces of wood), that will give you individual wooden pieces that should each look like an oversized toothbrush head. Then, turn each section of the wooden rack upside down and apply a bit of glue to the back — hot glue or wood glue should do the trick. Place the first piece of the rack in the drawer closest to the handle, with the next one above that. It will look like a stacked ladder.

Once the glue has set, take your spices and place them into each section in the drawer. You'll notice how the top of the spice containers now rest on the old base of the dish rack, making it much easier to see what spice you need next for that delicious Indian dish or the Nashville-style hot chicken recipe you've been hoping to try.

Pantries often become cluttered catch-alls for towels, quirky cooking tools, and random gadgets that don't have a home. Instead of buying expensive storage baskets, you can repurpose a dish rack as a pantry basket to keep things organized and accessible. The rack's slats act as dividers, which are perfect for holding rolled-up kitchen towels, canned food, kitchen tools, or even small baking sheets. Simply place the dish rack on a pantry shelf and use it to separate the things in your kitchen that usually pile up in corners or get tossed into the drawer.

You could even use your old dish rack to build a pull-out basket in your pantry. All you need is a little DIY know-how and a few simple tools. You'll need pull-out extension mounts or draw slides. Once you've measured up and mounted them inside the pantry, all you need to do is secure the dish rack to them. You can either just zip tie the rack or secure it to a wooden board, which you then secure to the extension mounts. Once you've tested it all works, you can then load up the dish rack for easy access to whatever goodies you're storing.

Both of these options work especially well in pantries with deep shelves, where items tend to get pushed to the back and forgotten. This makeshift pantry basket is a low-cost, high-impact solution that breathes order into one of the most unruly kitchen spaces.

It can be difficult trying to find the matching lid for a plastic container in a cluttered kitchen drawer. Whether you have high-end Tupperware containers or the cheaper alternatives, there's a good chance that there is very little order to the drawer in your kitchen that houses them. With an old dish rack, however, you can bring some order to the chaos.

Take your old dish rack and place it into your plastic container drawer to create a lid rack. Then, put your container lids into each of the slats for simple yet neat storage. If you stack the actual containers inside each other and place them alongside your new lid storage rack, you'll save plenty of space. The slats will prevent the lids from shifting all over the place, and you'll be able to see the colors so you can match them to the right container.

If you have more than just one dish rack, you can start to sort lids by type — round in one row, rectangular in another — to streamline your storage even more. This trick is particularly helpful in kitchens with limited drawer space where containers and lids often end up in chaotic stacks. Instead of digging through a pile of mismatched tops, you'll have a neatly arranged system that saves time and takes one thing off the frustration list. A small change, perhaps, but an effective one.

If you are one of the many Americans who are choosing to grow their own produce at home, then this hack is for you. Something that many people don't think about when first considering planting a vegetable garden in their yard is how to clean and dry the produce when it's ready to eat. While you can use the sink to give them a good clean, they'll need a place to dry off. If you just drop them into the sink, they could end up spoiling faster as the water may not drain off properly.

You could head to your local retailer to buy a herb or vegetable drying rack, but these can be quite bulky. If you have a small kitchen, you may not have the kitchen counter space to allocate to it — that's where an old dish rack comes in handy. Simply take the old rack and place it over your sink. Once you've cleaned the herbs or vegetables, just place them in the rack to dry off. The water will simply drain down the sink.

Once you're done, you can store the old dish rack under the kitchen sink or in the garden shed if you have one. This is a great option for those who prefer to take the eco-conscious route and repurpose items around the home wherever possible. It won't cost you a cent, and it's great for the environment.

If you're limited with kitchen drawer space, as so many other Americans are, there's a good chance that you're storing your pots and pans all wrong, with loose lids stacked on top of each other. Not only is it frustrating having to rummage through your kitchen drawers trying to find a matching pot lid, but you'll also do damage to them over time as they rattle and shift every time the drawer is opened. As for cutting boards, they often tend to be thrown into the mix, where you have to sort through the drawer to get to them when needed.

To sort out the clutter and give your loose pan lids a bit more longevity and order, you can simply use a dish rack. Take the old rack and place it in the drawer if there is space, or in the cabinet under the sink. The slots in the dish rack are the perfect size for your pot lids as well as your cutting boards. Simply rack them into place, close the door or drawer, and you'll be able to easily access them when needed.

If you don't feel comfortable putting the old rusted or peeled dish rack where you'll see it from time to time, just give it a quick paint, and it will be good to go. If it's beyond any sort of reuse, when you do go and buy your new dish rack, just get two and use one for the pot lids and cutting boards.

If you're tired of plastic containers and lightweight dishes flipping over in the dishwasher, an old dish rack is a relatively unknown must-have kitchen tool. By placing a dish rack inside the dishwasher, you can prevent your kids' lunchboxes, storage containers, and even pots and pans from shifting or overturning during the wash cycle. This means that you'll have clean dishes once the machine is done, as opposed to upturned and soggy bits and pieces.

The beauty of this tip is that you don't need a fancy or expensive rack for it to work. A basic metal or plastic dish rack from a dollar store or second-hand shop will do the job just fine. Make sure it's dishwasher-safe and fits comfortably inside your machine without blocking the spray arms or detergent dispenser. Once you've tested it a few times, you might find it becomes a permanent part of your dishwashing routine.

Simply position the dish rack over the top of the dishes or containers that you're looking to wash, then start the cycle. The rack's weight and structure will help to hold everything down and keep the lighter items in place. This hack works particularly well for oddly shaped items that don't sit securely in standard dishwasher slots. Another perk? The rack also acts as a divider, preventing smaller items from nesting together, which often blocks water flow and results in smudged and dirty bits and pieces after the cycle is done.

If your cookbooks don't have a proper home in the kitchen, being cast away into the lowest drawer or just piled on top of each other in the corner of the kitchen, your old dish rack can create some order. Its upright dividers are perfect for storing several cookbooks neatly, just like a mini bookshelf. You can slot each book between the separators so they stand vertically, making them easy to browse and grab when needed. This works especially well for recipe books that are not too bulky.

All you need to do is take your preloved dish rack and find a place for it on your kitchen counter, island, or even as a floating shelf. Stack your cookbooks into each of the dividers and you'll have them at arm's reach when you're ready to try your favorite grandmother's recipe, or that traditional Thai dish that you've been thinking about.

Wire or wooden dish racks work best, and you don't need to alter them — just give them a quick wipe down and they're ready for a second life. If they are a little worse for wear, just give them a lick of paint and they'll appear brand-new. It's a functional, zero-cost storage upgrade that adds a bit of character to your kitchen and puts your personality on display through the titles you love. So, if you've got a dish rack collecting dust in a cupboard, this is a low-effort, high-reward way to bring order to your cooking space.