Kitchen Organization: The Seasoning Situation

I have A LOT of different spices and seasonings. I’m not sure when it happened, or how exactly, but my spices are literally taking me and my kitchen over. Not only do I have this full 16 unit spice rack with separate bottles overflowing around it…

but I also have all my bulk spices…

and, well…more bulk spices…

…it’s a problem. But what can I say, well seasoned food is important to me! While I love my spices, I can’t stand the disorganization problem any longer. With every recipe I make I have to go hunting in three different places for my spices and it’s a waste of my time. So to fix things, I started out by moving to whole business to the “dining room” (in quotes because it’s not a formal dining room) area to asses the situation.

Holy spices.

One of the main problems I have is that this dumb spice rack I bought right after we got married (which was pre-filled with spices) is full of spices that I don’t want and NEVER use. Therefore, it was just wasting a lot of my space. So I decided to re-vamp it.

First thing was to nix the seasonings that I just don’t want.

I threw away savory, herbs provence, whole corriander, fennel, marjoram, sage, parsley, and chives, and then cleaned the bottles out. After realizing that I wanted a couple more spots in the rack, I decided to nix the basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary, too. I like them all, but if I’m ever using them I prefer to either use them fresh or use them in the bulk “Italian Seasoning” mix that I have. So long, fellas!

That’s when I came to the realization that there were only FOUR spices in that entire rack that I was using–what a waste of space! The bottom rack is even covered in dust because I literally never go near it. The four lucky ones are cinnamon, ginger, cayenne pepper, and Italian seasoning!

Next I needed to narrow down the 12 spices that I really love and use the most that I wanted to have permanent spots in the rack. This was actually harder than I thought it would be! I started out with my staples: black pepper (how ridiculous is it that the spice rack didn’t come with pepper?!), garlic powder, onion powder, and Adobo seasoning.

To that I added my staple baking spices: nutmeg and allspice (cinnamon and ginger were already in the rack).

I had six spaces left in the rack, and since I cook a lot of international food I filled the remaining spots with those kinds of spices: chili powder, cumin, garam masala, roasted corriander, and turmeric. I also discovered that I bought ground cloves back in Atlanta, but I had no clue I even had it! Great for baking, so it definitely went in the rack.  Once the decisions were made, I busted out the label maker to re-label the jars!

Once I had the jar tops labeled and the jars were totally dry (I may or may not have used a blow dryer to get them completely dry inside), I filled the jars with the appropriate spices and returned them to their new home! This was a slooowww and messy process…

But it was so worth it!

I suddenly have counter space!

I’m a messy person by nature but I do love it when things are nice and organized. Next up I definitely need to tackle my disaster of a baking cabinet! 😛

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren