The Best Ways to Organize Your Spice Cabinet
I always preach about the organizational triangle , which involves grouping all similar items together and providing them with a designated storage space. There are a few categories of items in your home that you probably naturally do this with: your spices and other cooking and baking ingredients are probably one of them.
Even if you already store all those spices together in a specific cabinet, it probably still isn’t very organized—and that’s because there’s simply so much of it, and it’s acquired gradually, making it easy for disorganization to creep up. You.
First, consider decanting your spices.
In addition to preaching the Gospel of the Triangle, I’m also a big fan of decanting store-bought foods and putting them into more uniform containers. Not only does this look nice, but it also allows everything to fit together better since similar sized vessels can be easily stacked or placed next to each other.
Consider a set that has 24 identical bottles plus labels, so all your spices and herbs look more uniform.
Next, your spices need to be accessible.
Whether you strain them and place them in more uniform containers or not, your spices should be accessible and easy to manage. There’s nothing more annoying than having to remove a bunch of bottles just to reach the one in the back. Having your counters already stocked while you’re getting ready for dinner makes it a worse nightmare.
First, consider a retractable rack to help you avoid this altogether. You simply pull the rack along the rails and it pops right out of the cabinet, giving you easy access to every can, even the ones in the back.
Depending on your preferences, you can purchase a tiered organizer that will elevate those in the back above those in the front. The advantage of using this option over a pull-out rack is that you can see all of your spices at once and know exactly what you have.
Lazy Susans or pinwheels are always a great idea too. I use them to organize almost everything in my home , but their most common purpose is to organize spices, so why not go back to the basics? The one below has two tiers, ideal for small containers, as well as an open middle section that can accommodate larger bottles such as cooking oil.
If you’re starting from scratch, your best choice may be a comprehensive offering, like this spinner that comes with 20 decant jars and 386 labels. It’s quite tall so it might not fit in your closet, but it’s nice enough to fit right on your countertop.
If you’re adamant about putting everything in one cabinet, look into your spice rack instead. This is an adjustable, expandable rack that fits into your cabinet after removing existing shelves, making room for any size cans around the perimeter of the rack and leaving room in the middle. This ensures you can always see every can and bottle, while leaving room in the center for larger bottles.