Best Spice Storage Solution: Mason Jars

Spice storage is a challenge that bedevils many of us — especially those of us who use tablespoons, not pinches, of spices in our cooking. Indian, Indonesian, and Malaysian cooking often demand large amounts of spices — the average little spice bottle is gone in two cooking sessions. So I finally turned to the most practical option, and it is working splendidly. Mason jars prove their worth yet again.

My spice cupboard had become a real horror; I was buying spices in little bags, which piled up and blew their dusty contents over the floor of the cabinet. I never knew what I had or where it was. And my spice jars never seemed to stay full and they were a pain to refill.

Then I saw Marisa McClellan's (of Food in Jars) lovely spice storage in her apartment — tons of little pint jars all lined up. Lightbulb moment! Mason jars to the rescue again.

Here are three reasons I turned from my wee spice jars to 1/2-pint and wide-mouth pint jars.

• 1. Mason jars are inexpensive. I have spent too much money on spice jars and storage systems. Mason jars are inexpensive, and they are always available. If you lose a lid or need to replace a jar you can easily swap them out. I bought a case of 12 1/2-pint jars on Amazon for $14. You can probably find them even cheaper elsewhere.

• 2. Mason jars hold a practical amount of spices. Like I said above, I do a lot of cooking that depends on larger quantities of spices. Mason jars easily hold a half cup or more of spices. They also hold whole spices easily; I store cinnamon sticks and whole dried chiles in the jars.

• 3. Mason jars are easy to stack, store, and refill. No more peering through lids to guess what's inside a jar — these clear glass jars let you see what's inside (I still wrote on them with a Sharpie, though, just to be extra-sure about what's inside). They stack well, if necessary, and they are easy to refill. I take my jars down to my local co-op and refill them from the bulk spice area. I filled these for a fraction of what it would cost to buy spices in jars at the grocery store.

My spice cupboard is so much happier and healthier now, and it's easy to grab salt (stored in a full pint-sized jar) or cinnamon sticks. Everything is clear and organized, and all for the low cost of Mason jars.

If Mason jars aren't quite your thing, though, we've blogged a lot of other spice storage solutions. There's this printer's tray setup, and a spice rack built with a ruler. There's this very popular DIY wall-mounted magnetic spice rack, and a white and minimal rack, also DIY. I really like this rack built inside on a cupboard door.

How do you store your spices? Do you use Mason jars?

More Good Uses for Canning Jars

Pictured above, left to right:
• Pantry Organization: Put Your Grains In Jars
• 5 Reasons Why Desserts in Jars Are the Schizzle-Dizzle
• Canning Jars as Glasses: Shabby Chique or Just Shabby?

More (not pictured above)
• Oatmeal in Jars: Make a Week of Breakfast in 5 Minutes
• Snack On The Go: Veggies Stored In Dip
• Cool Idea! DIY Ice Cream Kit in a Jar
• Cupcakes In a Jar! The Latest Cupcake Craze

Jars We Like
• Five Extra-Pretty Canning Jars
• Best Jars to Organize Your Pantry
• Great Storage: CAST Glass Jars by Kosei Shirotani

(Images: Faith Durand)

Comments (21)

i love this idea! mason jars are one of my favorite things over at villa vida. i adore the mason jar glasses with handles - they double as glasses and coffee mugs!
www.villa-vida.blogspot.com

Great idea. Those two-piece lids can get obnoxious though -- I recommend the plastic ones as a way more convenient alternative. Not for canning but great for storage! You can sometimes find them at hardware stores, and they also carry them on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Ball-Wide-Mouth-Plastic-Storage-Caps/dp/B000SSN3L2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308232496&sr=8-2

Absolutely! I do the exact same thing! It's much easier to hold large quantities of spices this way, and when I need a lot of a particular spice, I just dump some out of the jar instead of measuring with a spoon. Easy!

How refreshing to see people using wax pencils to label again! I swear if I saw one more chalk paint container...

I did this with three height sets of mason jars. I put the largest jars in the back row and smallest in the front row. It created a step spice rack so I can see all of my spices. I also wrote on the glass with permanent marker to identify my spices easier.

Faith,
That bottle of asafoetida on the top shelf will stink up the whole spice department. I keep the asafoetida bottle inside a mason jar.

This is the website I've used to get all my mason jars, they're cheaper than amazon. They also carry the plastic lids.

http://www.freshpreservingstore.com/

FYI - 1/2 pint is the equivalent to one cup, a pint to two cups. What's nice is the jars have cup measurements on them, while probably not as exact as an actual measuring cup you know right away if you have enough for a recipe.

Actually Mason jars don't stack all that well - we have our spices in 4 and 8 oz jars, and when stacked, they're prone to falling over. We've addressed this by keeping the infrequently used spices in 4oz jars in clementine boxes, which keep everything in place.

I also buy my spices in bulk from Penzey's and use this method. I use the smaller wide mouth 8 ounce jars and they work great for me.

yes!! I have tried so many things with spices - the traditional spice bottles, the magnetic metal ones with see-through lids from Ikea... and it wasn't until last year that I finally decided to switch everything to the small Mason jars. They're so cute, they stack GREAT (at least the small ones do), they're inexpensive, and I never have to worry 'what if I need more and they don't carry that spice jar/bottle anymore?'. Yep, a fan here too. Thanks!

Yup. I do this too. As a bonus, the small 8oz jars and the smaller flatter jelly jars will fit perfectly in an Elfa spice rack that hangs over the door of my pantry. So all of my spices are right there, lined up where I can see them easily. Penzeys and Mason jars = well organized, fresh spices!

I'm a fan of the mason jar method, too.

However, I think I've read/heard that spice quality can be affected by light. If so, this is easily remedied by keeping them in a cupboard, and if you move through certain spices quickly it's a moot point.

Empty jars of artichoke hearts, baby food, and minced garlic work well too!

I have been doing this for years and my boyfriend thought I was crazy! I use the small jelly jars too. It is great for common spice combinations or blends that I make myself (cajun, seasoning salt, italian seasoning, poultry seasoning, mexican blend). I just put the big jars on one shelf and the little jars on another with one of those staggered shelf inserts and it works out.

I've been using mason jars since I noticed Michael Smith using them in his pantry on "Chef at Home". I use big ones for bulk dry good (quinoa, rice, sugar, etc.) and the smaller ones for spices I go through a lot of in a short time, like cumin and garlic powder.

Really? Ordering a case of glass jars on Amazon? Dude, your grocery or hardware store has 'em, and not packed like Amazon typically does it (item plus metric bargeloads of packing material in a box many times the size of the purchased item). They are among humankind's most useful inventions, and they really CAN be had, easily, in your very own town.

I reuse old pasta sauce jars, salsa jars, peanut butter/mayo jars - all glass, all reusable. :)

And of course surplus spices and powders left in the packet get clipped using those wondrous IKEA plastic bag clips.

I agree, why not re-using empty jars of marmelade, mayonaise etc? that's what I do as well.

They are just too big, aside from a few staple spices. The spices would lose their flavour before I used them.

I wanted to transfer my spices from their messy bags to something easier to store. I was thinking about small mason jars, but I didn't have any and they were too hard to find in the city for cheap. So I went to the dollar store and picked up a dozen little glass jars with metal, air tight lids. They stack and are cute and 12 bucks.

I have been doing this for years - but take it a step further, use a Parmesan Chesse Shaker top to scoop your spices out easier because the opening is bigger and will accept all size measuring spoons without fighting the two part mason jar tops that rust. A parmesan Top fits the mason jars perfectly and you have the option to shake or scoop out your spices.