How to Store Potatoes, Onions and Garlic So They Last for Months

A sack of potatoes is one of the cheapest things in the supermarket and one of the easiest to waste. Leave it in a warm cupboard and within a couple of weeks you’re picking off long white shoots and peeling away green patches. Once you know how to store potatoes properly, along with their usual shelf-mates, onions and garlic, most of that waste simply stops happening.

Below you’ll find a quick storage chart, a clear answer to the fridge question (the official advice in the UK changed a few years ago), and the small habits that quietly cut shelf life in half.

The short version: potatoes like it cool, dark and dry, and the fridge is now considered fine. Onions and garlic like it cool, dry and airy. Keep the two groups on separate shelves.

Where to store potatoes, onions and garlic: the chart

Food	Best spot at home	What it needs	Keep it away from
Potatoes	Dark cupboard, cool garage shelf or the fridge	Darkness, a cool temperature and some air	Light, heat, onions, plastic bags
Sweet potatoes	Cupboard or pantry, not the fridge	Mild and dry, around 55–60°F (13–16°C)	The fridge, which can harden the flesh and spoil the flavor
Brown, red and white onions	Wire basket or mesh bag	Cool, dry, plenty of airflow	Potatoes, damp spots, sealed bags
Garlic bulbs	Open bowl or mesh bag out of the sun	Cool, dry, airy	Humidity and plastic
Cut onion or garlic	Fridge, in a sealed tub	Cold and covered	Open shelves where the smell spreads

Should you store potatoes in the fridge?

For years the answer was no. Cold makes some of the starch in a potato turn to sugar, and those sugars can form a chemical called acrylamide when potatoes are roasted, fried or baked at high heat.

That advice has since been revised. According to Love Food Hate Waste, the UK Food Standards Agency now says home fridges below 5°C (41°F) are a good place for raw potatoes, after research reviewed by its toxicity experts found fridge storage didn’t push acrylamide up compared with a cupboard. The European Food Information Council gives similar guidance: a cool pantry at roughly 7–12°C (45–54°F) is ideal, and the fridge is a sensible backup.

So if your kitchen runs warm, it’s now perfectly fine to store potatoes in the fridge. Two small tips make it work better:

• Use a paper bag or an open container in the salad drawer so moisture doesn’t collect on the skins.
• Whatever you store them in, roast and fry to a golden color rather than dark brown. That’s the bigger factor in acrylamide either way.

How to store potatoes in a cupboard or garage

No room in the fridge? You can store potatoes in a cupboard or an unheated garage just as well, as long as you get the basics right.

1. Don’t wash them first. Water left on the skin encourages rot. Brush off loose soil right before you cook instead.
2. Get them out of the plastic. Sealed bags trap moisture. Tip them into a paper sack, a cardboard box with a few holes, or a basket with a cloth laid over the top.
3. Pick the darkest, coolest spot you have. That rules out cupboards next to the oven, dishwasher, boiler or a radiator.
4. Sort before you store. Any cut, soft or bruised potatoes go to the front for this week’s meals. One rotting potato can spoil the ones around it.
5. Check once a week. A quick look and a sniff is enough. If you’ve had trouble with tiny flies hovering around the vegetable rack, our guide to getting rid of fruit flies in the kitchen explains why forgotten produce is often the cause.

If you use a garage or shed, keep the sack off a cold concrete floor and protect it from frost. A frozen potato turns soft and watery once it thaws.

Green skin and sprouts: keep or throw away?

Light is the main reason to store potatoes in the dark, because it turns the skin green. The color itself is chlorophyll and is harmless, but it’s a warning sign: green areas tend to carry higher levels of natural compounds called glycoalkaloids (mostly solanine), which can upset your stomach in larger amounts.

• Small green patches: cut them away generously, with a margin around the edge.
• Mostly green, or tastes bitter: throw it out.
• Small sprouts: dig out the sprout and the eye it grew from, then cook as normal.
• Long sprouts on a soft, wrinkled potato: it’s past its best, so compost it.

How to store onions and garlic

Onions and garlic need different conditions from the way you store potatoes. They care less about cold and more about air. Damp, still conditions are what make them go soft, sprout or grow mold.

• Whole dry onions keep best in a wire basket, a mesh bag or a well-ventilated cupboard. They don’t need the fridge, and its humid air can make them turn soft.
• A cut onion is different. Wrap it or put it in a lidded tub, keep it in the fridge and use it within a few days.
• Garlic lasts longest as a whole, unbroken bulb. Once you start pulling cloves off, the rest of the bulb declines faster, so use it up over the next week or two.
• Garlic in oil is the one to be careful with. Homemade garlic-infused oil should go straight into the fridge and be used quickly, never left at room temperature, because the low-oxygen conditions can let harmful bacteria grow.

Is it true you shouldn’t store potatoes and onions together?

Mostly, yes. The usual explanation is that onions give off moisture and gases that make nearby potatoes sprout sooner, and potatoes in turn add humidity that onions don’t like. The European Food Information Council recommends keeping them apart, and also says ethylene-producing fruit such as apples, bananas and tomatoes can make potatoes sprout early.

You don’t need separate rooms to store potatoes and onions apart. A shelf apart, or opposite ends of the pantry, is enough. If space is tight, our guide on how to organize kitchen cupboards has ideas for finding a spot for each.

Storing a home-grown harvest for months

If you grow your own, curing is what turns weeks of storage into months. Iowa State University Extension gives these guidelines:

Crop	How to cure it	How to store it	Typical storage life
Potatoes	About 2 weeks at 50–60°F, in high humidity	Dark, around 40°F, humid	5–8 months
Onions	2–3 weeks somewhere warm, dry and airy, until the necks are dry	32–40°F, fairly dry	5–8 months
Garlic	Warm, dry and airy, on a raised screen or tray	32–40°F, fairly dry	6–7 months
Sweet potatoes	10–14 days in a warm, shady spot at home	55–60°F, humid	4–6 months

Most homes don’t have a root cellar to store potatoes and onions in, so expect less than this in a garage or a cupboard. Check stored crops every couple of weeks and use the first signs of softening as your cue to cook them.

Before you buy the big sack: a quick checklist

• Do you have a spot that stays dark and cool, or room in the fridge?
• Will you get through it in the next few weeks?
• Have you got a paper bag, box or basket ready, rather than the plastic bag it came in?
• Are the onions on a different shelf?

Four yeses means you can store potatoes in bulk and the bigger bag is a real saving. For everything else in the cold, here’s where to store food in your fridge, shelf by shelf.