6 Tips to Organize Cooking Spices
How does your spice cabinet look right now? If you are needing some inspiration to get your cooking spices organized and tidy, check out these six easy and inexpensive tips! If you cook often at home, having your spices stored in a way that makes them easy to identify will save you time and effort!
1) Create Spice Shelves Inside the Cupboard
I have this Stackable Spicy Shelf Organizer and it has worked so great for me! It is over a year old in the picture above and it still looks tidy and has helped my kitchen spices stay organized. The shelves adjust to fit the dimensions of your cabinet. Purchase this organizer at most big box stores and/or on Amazon.com.
2) Make a Magnetic Spice Rack
Use these handy metal magnetic spice tins to get organized and store these on a hanging piece of metal or on the fridge. Click here for directions on how to create a Magnetic Spice Rack using a sheet of tin found at most hardware stores.
3) Re-Purpose Baby Food Jars
I LOVE the idea of recycling small jars and painting the lids with chalkboard paint to easily identify your different spices. Click here to check out the final product – super cute!
4) No Cost Scrap Wood Risers
Do you have extra pieces of wood taking up space in your garage or shed? Check out this idea to DIY your own spice shelf with scrap wood!
5) Hang a Vintage Coke Crate
If you have wall space, this is an adorable and clever way to re-purpose a wood crate to store all your spices! Find these crates at thrift stores, flea markets and on Etsy.com.
6) Hang Spice Rack on Door
Use the space on the back of a door and hang inexpensive wood spice shelves like these found on IKEA.com or Amazon.com. Check out the final result here.
Just tried to double click the picture. Bahaha!! Great ideas!!
Lol that’s funny
I love those ikea spice racks! Although I don’t use them to organize my spices I use them in my tiny bathroom for storage and as a shelf on the top bunk of kids bunk beds.
I put the IKEA spice racks in my kids playroom as bookshelf. Bots chalk paint from Hobby Lobby with the 40% off coupon and painted them. They work really well and look awesome.
Love this idea – Thanks Sara!
Great ideas!
I have a removable lazy Susan that I bought at Walmart that I put in my baking cabinet that I keep all my spices on! That way I can just turn it and see everything I have! It works great because I have smaller cabinets 🙂
Lazy Susan here too! Baking on one. Then I have 2 others that I use for the regular herbs and spices. The lesser used ones go one a higher shelf. I keep them in the cabinet right next to the stove. Easy access
I use Walmart’s $.94 plastic storage boxes. I organize the spices in the bins based on likelihood I’ll use them together. So, Italian spices go together, Mexican spices in another, and other spices at “coordinate” flavors. That way, when i’m cooking, I can grab a bin out of my cabinet, use spices as necessary/desired then put the entire bin back in the cabinet. Easy way to stay organized!
Great idea to separate like that! Thanks Mandy. 🙂
This is exactly what I do! It’s so convenient and simple. Even my husband understands the system. I don’t lose track of spices and buy too much of one. I just have cheap baskets that fit in the otherwise-black-hole-tiny spice cabinet next to the stove.
So a year ago, I discovered talenti gelato and haven’t been able to stop buying them since. I ended up with a lot of empty plastic jars really quickly. The Talenti jars are bigger than your usual spice jar size, but if you have spices that you use more often or have a lot of, they’re perfect, and they have space to add a mini spoon or measuring spoon inside. I love that they’re plastic rather than glass, so they don’t break when I accidentally drop them. You can also add labels to them and see what’s inside the jar since they’re clear. And it’s good excuse to keep buying ice cream 😉
Yes -those jars are great! smart idea.
What a great way to turn a gelato addiction into a positive!! 😀
I put all of mine in mason jars. I labeled the tops and put them in $ tree bins. Makes them easy to see, and keeps them tidy and together. Plus, I can see exactly how much I’ve got left.
I bought the Spicy Shelf Organizer for myself from my kiddos for Christmas and I love it. One of my favorite gifts this year.
I have those little pencil baskets from dollar tree, hanging with a tac on the inside of my pantry door!!
Vertical spice are the BEST spice racks I’ve ever found. My boyfriend finally got me one for Christmas and I’m in love – I had wanted one for a long time but couldn’t justify the price. I jokingly call them the Cadillac of Spice Racks, lol. They are pricy but SO worth it! They fit any size container, they use all the vertical space in your shelf, and the pull out drawers let you see every jar. I would highly highly recommend. The website is verticalspice.com and they are also sold on Amazon with tons of 5-star reviews.
The drawer beside my stove holds all my spices! It’s glorious being able to see them all at once.
I bet it is! love that idea and am jealous of drawer space I don’t have! 😀
My cooking spices are in a drawer. I saw the idea before remodeling our kitchen and made sure to have a spice drawer in the plan. Hopefully this will show up. http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/nicole5772/Kitchen%202011-12/spicedrawer_zps94ba8622.jpg
Hi Nicole, I love your spice “door” and cute jars, BUT I think it was not such great idea of posting your entire albums on here 🙁 You have to many kids pictures including some personal documents that should not be shared. There are too many mean people out there. Maybe ask Collin to delete the link that you posted. This is just a friendly advice from another mom 🙂
Mine too, I love it. So convenient to have them right there in a drawer
I have 4 Kitchen Art Auto Measure Spice Carousels.
They stack easily once the thingy on the top is removed. I keep em on a shelf in the pantry…away from light and humidity. Small apt kitchen gets steamed up too easily.
I found all four in thrift stores for around $3 each over a two year span. Lucked out.
After washing them, I put em in a sink of water with bleach added. What the detergent didn’t take care of, the bleach followed up. Like the built in clicker for measuring along with the basic shaker top.
For day to day frequently used spices, I use a 24 compartment clear vinyl shoe storage thingy that hangs on the back of my pantry door.
I caved a few years ago and bought a spice organizer. it was kinda pricey, but its amazing. worth every penny because it keeps them super organized and accessible. I use this one http://www.amazon.com/YouCopia-Chefs-SpiceStack-30-Bottle-Organizer/dp/B007VERRLS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1455066571&sr=8-3&keywords=spice+storage
I keep my spices in an over the door mesh shoe holder. a few fit in each, so its mostly alphabetical order for ease.
I store my spices on a Lazy Susan. I always had a problem finding the smaller containers among the larger ones. My solution was to use a toilet paper tube. I cut the tube to fit the height between the lazy Susan shelves and cut a 1/2″wide piece out vertically. I then can stack a couple of the smaller spices in the tube and the slit allows me to see the label.
I have two avacado green 2 tier circle spinning rack. Not sure what they are called. I love them. I have a gold one in the shop that I haven’t figured out what to do with. I also have two hanging on the wall that I got from my grandfathers shed and painted them white.
A good way to store the small spice containers is to place a pressure curtain rod across the top area of your cabinet and set the small containers on top of the rod.
Last year I had spices all over the place and they were very unorganized. It was driving me crazy. Now I hang my spices on the back of my pantry door and I love it! My daughter alphabetized them for me and it saves so much time hunting for spices. I think it’s been about 5 months since switching and I still smile at my neatly organized spices! I bought 4 of these Organize It All 3-Tier Wall-Mounted Spice Rack – Chrome (1812) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ES1SRU/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_3nZUwbCCD1RGR
Yes I love that feeling too! Looks like a great way as well- thanks Melissa!
Thanks so much for the tips! I couldn’t believe my eyes today while browsing at the thrift store (I rarely shop there b/c Collin can find better deals for new items!). I found a 2 pack of the step type of spice organizers in the home office isle. They were nice heavy duty painted metal that match my neutral kitchen! Score! Your post inspired me to clean out two of my most dreaded cabinets! PLEASE keep these kind of posts coming! 🙂 I wish I took before and after pics lol.
How wonderful! Great story!
I use the beechnut baby food cardboard trays and set the seasonings in rows of them. When I need a spice I just pull out a sleeve to look for it.
I have a pampered chef revolving spice tower