The question last week about cleaning up an epic honey spill in the pantry reminded us of this tip: Store your honey in a ramekin or small bowl.
Honey jars tend to accumulate drips and sticky spots on their outsides, and eventually this stickiness winds up on your pantry shelves too. So we've developed a habit of always storing our honey bottle in a little ramekin. This ramekin is much easier to pull out and wash clean from time to time.
This is also a good idea for molasses and corn syrup — two other ingredients that tend to leave their (sticky) mark in the cupboard!
Do you have any other good tips for keeping your pantry clean, and for preventing sticky, oily spills?
Related: Pantry Organization: Storing Many Half-Empty Bags in One Large Container
(Image: Faith Durand)
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Oil and olive oil. I always keep a small tea cloth under each of them. Those bottles tend to be very messy.
i have a section in my baking and spice cabinet for sticky bottles. i fold up a piece of parchment paper and line the shelf in that section (bottles of honey, molasses, brown rice syrup, agave, etc.) if there is a bad spill i can easily replace the paper. but i haven't had to do that yet.
I don't think I'm all that careful - though our honey comes in glass jars which might help? - but I've never known honey do that. Marmite jars stick so you can't open them, but the only thing that ever seems to climb out of the bottle in my kitchen is balsamic vinegar... Guess I'll try this trick for that instead...
On any bottles that drip, fold a paper towel so it's about 2" deep - and goes all around the bottle - and place it midway down the bottle with a thick rubber band. Any drips get absorbed by the paper towel.
I have mine on a little ceramic tray, but my question is - what do you do with the piece of comb inside the jar? Can you use this for something? Or is it just sort of decorative to make me buy that jar - which worked of course.
With marmite, I don't screw the lid on tightly after each use and I also keep a rubber band on the lid to make it easier to open. If you can find it, vegemite is nowhere near as sticky.
I think this would be more useful in the medicine cabinet, under the toothpaste...
I sometimes keep my honey in a ramekin, but for a completely different reason.
When it gets really raining in the winter ants invade my kitchen and putting sweet things like honey in a ramekin with some water keeps the little buggers away.
I got a disposable... cookie sheet? from Walmart once to put under my messy jugs. It's a throw-away something that looks like a cookie sheet, anyway. I'm pretty sure I got it in the baking aisle.
On any bottles that drip, fold a paper towel so it's about 2" deep - and goes all around the bottle - and place it midway down the bottle with a thick rubber band. Any drips get absorbed by the paper towel.
kitchen pantry cabinet