So if you are anything like me, I find myself standing in the spice isle at the grocery store trying to remember if I have a certain spice. Usually this happens after tasting one of those delicious samples at the Publix kiosk. It’s even worse when I plan on making something that calls for standard spices and I don’t even question whether or not I have the spices in my spice area, only to find out when I pull out the bottle at home that it’s almost empty. Back to the grocery store (ugh!). This summer I decided I was going to get my spice act together. I was on a quest to figure out what spices I need and to find a way to organize them so they were in plain view (no more digging through spices trying to prevent them from falling).
I had two main goals in this project. Goal 1: Organize them in an easy to see way. Goal 2: Have the spices I need on hand.
I thought about a lot of options. Ultimately, I wanted to get the spices out of the pantry to make them more at my fingertips. The drawers in this kitchen extend fully so there is not a dead space at the back of the drawer. I have a large drawer stack where the top drawer was really be under utilized. Perfect spot for spices! I was on a mission to find affordable jars to fit in the drawer. After looking at every option I ended up buying these jars on sale at Target.
On their own, they are actually cute. However, I thought I should try to make them “cuter”. I didn’t want to do the whole chalk paint thing because I felt I wouldn’t be changing the jars out. They are going to hold that spice forever…so no need to chalk paint. I racked my brain for some other way to make them just as cute, feeling the pressure to bring the “cute factor”. Kind of a waste of time in hindsight. Does everything utilitarian have to be cute? Debatable. I sprayed the covers white with your standard spray paint. I found some great stickers in multiple colors in my scrapbook stash. I randomly picked colors and wrote the names on with a Sharpie. They ended up looking like this.
I put them in my drawer in alphabetical order. Is that a little “type A”? Sure, but it makes it easy to find what you are looking for which was one major goal of this spice makeover. 
GOAL 1 Accomplished!
Now, for goal 2, having the spices I really need to handle anything I see Ina or Rhee cooking. For this, I turned to my trusty New Basics Cookbook (one of my first cookbooks).
On page 790, they list all the dry herbs and spices everyone should have in their pantry. This is the list with a few additions of my own.
If you equip your spice drawer/rack with everything you need, you won’t be stuck at the grocery store wondering if you have something or not. Worse yet, you won’t end up with threes jars of thyme (like me) because I would just buy one when I didn’t know if I had it at home or not. Happy cooking!
Nancy
Nancy, great idea! Keep the organization tips coming! I need some assistance with the kitchen cabinet that holds my bowls and plastic items for storage-any ideas?
Thanks-Sarah
I think this is one of the hardest things in a kitchen, because like shoes we hang on to long after their time, we tend to hold on to those plastic storage containers too. My first piece of advice would be to have a little match up party with your bowls and lids. Anything that doesn’t have a match or doesn’t seal tightly needs to be recycled. Then start stacking the bowls from largest to smallest thinking about the size you tend to use the most often. Make sure you have enough of the size you always seem to need and not too many of the sizes that hardly ever get used. If you have good working bowls with lids, re-evaluate your pantry and see if you can re-purpose them to hold brown sugar, powdered sugar etc…. I prefer to stack bowls and then keep lids in a separate basket/tub right behind the bowls. If you pair it way down it should all fit. Besides, who can store that much food in the refrigerator anyway? Whenever we seem to have too many left overs piling up in the fridge, my husband asks if this is real food or if it is “just for show” food. 🙂 So…edit ruthlessly and then stack. The key is to make yourself keep it organized once you achieve it.
hi great job! I also thought of this idea before and was so sure that other people would like to have spice jars with the name spice on the top of the lid that I contacted a major spice company in Australia to tell them my idea. I thought it would be great if they made jars like this. They didn’t agree 🙁
since then I have installed 2 racks in my pantry and continued to store them alphabetically vertically.
Love your website 🙂
Thanks Dianne. It has been such a change in my kitchen to have them organized in this way. Easy to find them and I always know I have the spice at home when I’m standing in the grocery store. Glad you thought of it too! Great minds think alike!