In our house, hubby does most of the cooking. (I know, ladies, I hit the jackpot.) So when he came to me and asked me to please organize our spice rack, I knew it was bad lol. Our kitchen happens to have one of those pull out/built-in spice rack thingys, but finding a specific spice was still like finding a needle in a haystack. Not anymore! With a little spice rack organization, everything is neatly sorted in alphabetical order and easy to find. Now, I know sorting spices into little jars may not be the most riveting content on the internet, but I’m telling you; this is one of those projects that will have you saying why didn’t I do this sooner!? I mean, look at the difference:
What You’ll Need:
- Spices 🙃
- Spice jars & labels *I used this kit from Amazon
- Cleaner (*my fav is Krud Kutter)
- White chalk marker (above kit comes with one)
- Optional: piece of paper to use as funnel
How To:
Step 1: Whether you store your spices in a cabinet, drawer, rack – wherever – you’ll want to take everything out and start with a blank slate. I took this opportunity to completely wipe down my shelves as well. I am a big fan of Krud Kutter for removing tough, stuck-on food, grease, stains, you name it. 10/10 recommend for cleaning all the gunk!
Step 2: Take out all your spices and toss any that are expired. You may be surprised how many of those bad boys are way past their expiration date. (I had a bottle of garlic powder from Longo’s, which is a Canadian retailer…. You guys, I haven’t lived in Canada since 2016!! We’re lucky to be alive, lol.)
Step 3: After you’ve junked all the bad spices, organize them in alphabetical order. This will make it much easier when it comes time to fill and label your jars.
Step 4: Now we’re ready to fill and label! I found it easiest to start with my ‘A’ spices and work my way down the alphabet. The spice jar kit I purchased on Amazon made this project so easy (and it’s on sale right now)! It came with everything you need: 36 jars, two different kinds of labels to choose from, blank labels, a white chalk marker, and a funnel. These 4oz. square bottom jars are perfect if you have a pull-out spice rack like us because the jars fit so nicely.
+ PRO TIP: The kit does come with a silicone funnel, but I found that the spices were sticking to it and I obviously couldn’t wash it out each time in between jars. Instead, I rolled up a sheet of paper and rolled it into a funnel!
Step 5: After you fill and label your jar, hold onto the old container before chucking it. You’ll want to write the expiration date on the bottom of the jar with your white chalk marker so you can reference it later. (No more eating five year old garlic powder, lol.) These markers are non-permanent, so you can easily change the date once you go to refill.
Step 6: You’ll repeat steps 4 and 5 until all your jars are filled! Now; I happened to have a lot of perfectly good spices leftover after filling my jars. My guess is you will too. Rather than toss ’em, keep them in a basket or pantry to use later to refill the jars once they get low. Also, I would suggest putting labels on jars for spices you are all out of but will use later. (That’s why you see a couple of empty jars in my ‘after’ photo.) I jotted these down on my grocery list to pick up later but wanted to still make a spot for them.
And there you have it, folks!
Spice rack organization: the blog post you didn’t know you needed, lol. It really does look so much better and is way more functional than the land of misfit spices it was before. Now get out there and spice up your life!
Please tell me I’m not the only one who remembers the Spice Girls…?!
Fun fact: I played Posh Spice in a 5th grade talent show with my friends. My mom wouldn’t let me wear a tie-bottom belly shirt and mini skirt to school (the nerve), so I stuffed them in my backpack, lol (sorry, mom). We lip-synced their song ‘Stop,’ …and we lost. Valiant effort though.
FOLLOW ON THE GRAM
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Looks very nice! So organized! I am working on doing my pantry. I am switching out the bags and boxes for nice Rubbermaid containers that air seal as well as clip (Rubbermaid Brilliance). It looks so nice and I can’t wait to get it finished. I have jars for the spices and just bought 2 boxes of a little bigger jars as well as 6 racks but the racks won’t fit where I need them so I’ll use them in my craft room and maybe have hubby do one of these type racks. They aren’t hard to do and I just hadn’t thought about that. I don’t really have the room in my kitchen for the ones I really want. I actually have two of these slim cabinet areas that will work and I’m sure I will need both of them. Also a great idea to mark them on the bottoms. With the Rubbermaid I have been temporarily throwing in the exp. dates from the original containers and just sliding them into plastic envelopes like you would put a driver license or something like that in. When I finish I will be attaching those plastic envelopes to the outside of the containers. I don’t think you can use these chalk markers on them but I’m not sure so I’ll have to try it. If it does work that’s even easier! Love love love what you’ve done!
Thank you, Shirley! Sounds like you have the kitchen organization bug! Can you rub some of that off on me? lol!