4 Tips for Organizing Your Spices

Reading Time: 4 minutes

How’s your spices lookin’ these days?

I heard it’s a pain point in many kitchens. Not sure what’s hiding in the back behind the old expired spices that you forgot you had?

I absolutely LOVE this 3-tier, stainless spice holder for the inside of my cabinet. Because I have so many spices (and Yes, I use them all), I have two of these racks.

I’m pretty sure I bought them here at Wal-Mart like over 7 years ago, and now they’re only available in-store. I checked recently, and our store no longer has them. I found some similar ones on Amazon here.

The more organized your spice rack is, the more you can actually see what you have and enjoy your cooking experience. Andddd… you can stop wasting money on throwing out old spices that never got used because they were forgotten. We don’t want to be doing that – good spices are not cheap!

I’ve come up with a list of tips to keep your spices in order, and you’ll LOVE feeling organized while cooking and searching for the spices you need.

1. Keep spices in reach.

The worst place for spices is in the cabinet on top of the vent hood. That cabinet gets SO sticky and nasty, and it’s probably not in good reach, unless you’re really tall.

I don’t keep a lot of things on my counter tops, simply because I like sleek spaces to keep everything looking open and clean. The least amount of things on the counter is a great way to keep your kitchen looking clean. Therefore, I will never have my spices sitting on my counter, even on a rack. If it was the only thing on the counter, then maybe I would.

I suggest keeping them in the cabinet closest to your cooking area. Easy to reach, and free of dust. Which is the next thing…

2. Dust-free area

Another bad thing about keeping more things on the counter top is that those things collect DUST. There’s the cute little wall holders for spices, but all I see is dust when I imagine it. Plus, I have too many spices for that. I’d need an entire wall.

I try to prevent the amount of dust build-up around my house by simply not having a lot of things out to collect the dust. There’s minimal dusting that goes on around here, and it’s pretty nice.

Keeping the spices in a cabinet keeps them free from dust. If they’re out on the counter all the time, each one of those little spice jars gets full of dust and each one would need to be dusted. Ugh, no thanks. Unless of course you enjoy that, go right ahead.

I do wipe out our spice cabinet about once a month to clean up the residue that spills out from the tops of some of the spices, such as Tony’s.

I’ve also seen some really neat kitchen hacks that store the spices laying down in a drawer. It’s a great idea, but I’m not particularly a fan of that because I know that I’d have to wipe it out more often than I wipe out my cabinet. I know I’d see spice residue on the bottom of the drawer daily, and my OCD would kick in way too often. Plus, I have more cabinets than I do drawers.

Having the 3-tier racks, as mentioned earlier, makes the wiping SO EASY…

3. Spice Racks

Again, I’ve been having these for over 7 years now, and besides the gas stove, it’s the best thing I’ve ever had in my kitchen. I can see everything, and nothing is hiding out in the back.

They’re the perfect size for our cabinets, which aren’t super wide or super narrow. They fit quite a bit of spices, and as you can see, they allow for an extra row of tiny spice containers at the very bottom that sits directly on the cabinet.

4. Separate spices into groups

Separate dessert spices from cooking spices.

I consider dessert spices the ones that you might use to make sweets – cinnamon, all-spice, nutmeg, etc.

Cooking spices are everything else – oregano, paprika, chili powder, cumin, etc.

That way, when you go to make dessert, you don’t have to dig through all the dinner spices to get to the cinnamon and vanilla.

I also keep all the larger containers together. Except for the cinnamon; it goes with the dessert spices.

I keep all liquids on the shelf above – vanilla, Worcestershire, oils, vinegars, and cooking wines.

Just remember that before reorganizing anything, take everything out, wipe down, throw away the old and unnecessary, then put it all back. This process for spices should only take about 30 minutes.

Happy organizing! I hope this helps you to take another look at your spices, throw out the ones you never use and are stuck together and expired, and store them beautifully in a dust-free area for a better cooking experience!