After organising your kitchen, you want to learn how to organise your spice cabinet or just the spices you have. You are at the right place, let’s dive into this fun organising project.

When I grew up we had a limited amount of spices, I did get this beautiful rotating spice rack when I started cooking as a teen. It took a bit of space on the kitchen counter but this was fine. If you have read another of my organising pages you might know I am Dutch and migrated to Australia as a 19 year old. What you won’t know is that when I just migrated Australia I lived with an Indian family for several years and they have spices - in bulk! When I set up a house for myself, I had grew accustomed to the flavours and had a drawer full of spices. Now years later, living within the multicultural cuisine of Australia I have very mixed spice needs. At the moment all spices live on a tray I can easily grab when cooking.

How many spices do you need?

What this story shows is that there might be three levels to the amounts of spices you have:

Very few
Lots of spices
A moderate amount

Depending on how much spice you use when cooking you might need to think about your spice containers.

There is a difference between sprinkling and scooping spices within your food. Depending on your needs the containers, space and accessibility all play a role. Chili anyone?
Irrespective of your preference or way of cooking the process will be the same. You need to declutter and organise your spices.

How do you use the spices?

There is also a difference between form and function.

Form how the items look
Function how you use the items

Even though there will be 100 ways to make your spices look pretty, I suggest you go for function before form. But first let’s see what spices you have.

Declutter your spices

When you are ready to organise your spice cabinet take all the spices out of your kitchen. Put them together on a pile and sort through them. I can guarantee you will have spices you don’t use, toss them. Only keep spices you like and use often (cooking is an art not a science, it is unlikely that you get scolded for not including Himalayan rock salt in your dish). Think about the volume of spices you use as this will impact the containers you use.

Here are the points in short form:

Take all the spices out of your kitchen
Toss the spices you don’t use
Don’t worry about not having a spice for a recipe
Look at the volume of spices you have
Think about what containers you need

Organise your spices

Once you know which spices to keep and the volume of these spices (e.g. lots of salt or chili) you can do two things:

Determine how large your spice containers need to be
Know how many spice containers you need
When you have the containers transfer all the spices to these storage solutions.

Having the same and the right size containers without all the labels and different shapes, sizes of spice containers from the shops. Is the key to making this area look organised, I call it trying to make things “same-same” or “matchy- matchy”.

As I mentioned before it is tempting to make everything look super organised but it can only stay organised if it works. Therefor think about function (how will I use these spices, how often do I use them and how much do it need) before form (beautiful containers).

Words of advice on how to organise your spice cabinet:

It is easy to spend time, effort and money on containers and organising your spice cabinet for little or no results in the long run.

Here are a few points to keep in mind:

Buy more containers than you think
Think about if you need to sprinkle or get spoons full of the stuff
Create a home for the spices.
Use see-through containers
Label your spices
Go for a square shape if possible
Go for all the same spice containers
Be deliberate with your pepper and salt grinders

Buy more containers than you think you need but only keep spices that you know you will use

Think about if you need to sprinkle or get spoons of the stuff (my European, Australian and Indian experiences with the volume of spices proofs very different here. In Asian cooking you don’t sprinkle spice you add several teaspoons of the stuff to the cooking base. What this means is that you need easy access to get your spoon in the container.

Create a home for the spices. In the past I had this massive drawer full of spices. Now I have a tray with spices that lives on a shelf. We have a lot less spice but what we have we really use.

Go see-through, I am a fan of see-through containers especially in the kitchen at a glance you know how much you have and often what it is.

Label your spice containers. Labelling is its own organising project for spices things will remain relatively stable so once you have your spices sorted label away.

Spice container shape, square or round? When, I had the massive drawer of spices I had a square see-through bottom and a round wide top. Now I have a mix of containers - my husband bought them without me. We have a few spices for easy access and volume, some other spices we use to sprinkle. They all fit on a tray and are labeled so all is organised.

If you are starting from scratch I would get all the same spice containers, it is easy on the eyes.

Your pepper and salt grinders in Australia we love our pepper grinders that are officially carried out by wait staff in restaurants. I do as well but having a grinder on the bottom makes an unnecessary mess in your kitchen. We still have a salt and pepper grinder but one that works from the top, same benefit less mess.

**Learn to organise one space at a time**

The book: “Organising room by Room” will take you on a journey throughout your home.

Get the Book

Different spice cabinet organising solutions

Clearly there are pro’s and con’s for different spice solutions.

Ideally, you get all the same containers and place them in a drawer or on a shelf.
- This option allows you to expand and have a large amount of spices.
You could opt for a rotating spice rack or a lazy Suzanne.

The problem with these is:

That the amount of spices you can have is limited.
- If you add to the spices, it becomes a bit of a chaotic hutch-potch.
- And it will be tricky to spoon the spices out if you for example like making curries.

The benefit is that:

Putting limitations on how many spices you have might be a good thing. A key to organising is putting limits on how much you own.