How to Organize a Spice Drawer ~ a Beautiful, Budget, Time-Saver!
After I figured out how to organize a spice drawer well, I spent the most satisfying hour getting it done. It felt weirdly wonderful to take the chaos and bring order and beauty to this essential but neglected space. And it didn’t cost much at all!
For decades we’ve kept our spices in a drawer. In our small kitchen, this was the only spot we had for them. The problem has always been spice drawer organization – as you can see in the before pictures below – it was Wild West-level chaos in that drawer. Good luck finding the spice you need quickly; you needed forensic detective skills to locate it, wasting valuable cooking time and creating unnecessary frustration. Until now!
Is a spice drawer a good idea?
A spice drawer is absolutely a good idea. Most kitchens have a drawer near the stove – and keeping your spices near where you need to use them is a definite time saver.
Drawers also tend to be shallow, especially the top drawer. Generally speaking, spaces that are the right depth – versus too deep – make it infinitely easier to locate what you’re looking for without excessive digging around.
That being said, a spice drawer can become chaotic, if not organized. Take, for example, ours just a couple of weeks ago:
What’s less than perfect?
It took ages to dig through it to find the spice you want. This lead to wasted time and added frustration.
Many of these aren’t labelled, there’s duplicates and empty jars. This drawer is neglected.
Now that I’ve organized our main spice drawer, I’m thinking I can actually get rid of this one altogether, which would be great in our small kitchen. I have more useful things that could use this prime, stove adjacent real estate. More on that below.
How to Organize a Spice Drawer
Supplies:
- This set of 24 Glass Spice Jars with Bamboo Airtight Lids that comes with:
- 398 elegant spice labels,
- shaker inserts,
- a funnel,
- a brush, (and a marker, which I didn’t use)
- This adjustable spice drawer organizing rack
How to organize your spices in a drawer?
- Measure your drawer.
- My main spice drawer is 12 inches wide and 19 inches deep
- Determine the number of spice jars you can fit.
- I figured out that I could fit 24 jars perfectly.
- Choose your Spice Drawer Organizer
- I think square-shaped jars are ideal – they aren’t going to roll around when you open and close the drawer. The label is going to face up all the time making finding your spice of choice easiest.
4. Clean and dry your jars really well.
5. Decide which spices you use most often for the number of jars you can fit in your drawer.
- for example, our drawer fits 24 jars, so we picked our 24 most used spices.
5. Pour in your spice.
Solved this quickly by just snipping off the bottom inch or so.
(Nasty old scissors not required.)
6. Apply your label to the face of the Jar and the Lid.
7. Figure out your best way to organize spices.
- I did mine in alphabetical order, at first.
- Then I realized that the very last row of jars was a pain to get in and out. So we chose our six most rarely used of the 24 spices and put those at the back.
- The remaining 18 spices are in alphabetical order.
8. Add a spice drawer rack.
Then with a bit of use, the spice rattled around in the drawer when it was open and closed, which was just a bit annoying.
9. Optional: Protect your spice labels
If we wanted these labels to stay perfect looking, we could cover them with something wipeable.
We’d use what we call the “Poor Man’s Laminator”: Book tape! We keep a roll of this thick clear tape in a kitchen drawer for purposes just like this.
10. Manage Overflow Spices.
As I said above, I think these spices may get evicted – we use them so rarely. Drawer space in our small kitchen is too precious – I may repurpose this drawer to hold something more useful.
These spices can be relegated to a box and put in the back of a shelf.
This was just such a satisfying organizing task! I sincerely had so much fun doing it. In a short amount of time, I brought order to chaos and beauty to neglect! Ed is thrilled to cook with this time-saving change.
Who knew figuring out how to organize a spice drawer could give so much joy?!
More Kitchen Organization Ideas for you:
- Frugal Meal Planning Made Simple: First Step That Everyone Forgets!
- 25+ Free Printable Meal Planner pdfs: Get Dinner on the Table With Way Less Hassle
- Free Kitchen Conversion Chart Printable ~ a Handy Cheat Sheet to Solve Cooking Problems Quickly
- $8 Menu Plan Board: Dollar Store DIY (with Printable!)
- 15 Minute Organizing: A Powerful Way to Get Things Done
- Save Money and Time with this Genius Grocery List Printable (Free!)
Robin and Ed are a DIY-loving couple with over 25 years of design and build experience. Also, Robin is a Nutritionist and former Registered Dietitian and Ed is an award-winning Business Educator. We share strategies for living a rich life on a DIY budget: creative money-savvy ideas for a stylish home, healthy meals and family fun. Our work has been published in the pages of Do It Yourself, Farmhouse Style and Better Homes & Gardens magazines.
