Spices are an essential part of cooking to add flavour and depth to your dishes but it might surprise you to know that keeping them in that beautiful decorative spice rack on your kitchen bench could possibly be the worst thing you can do!  Spices need to be stored in a dark, dry and relatively cool location, so keeping them on display could mean that you’re losing their flavours and benefits long before their use by date.  Here are some excellent tips for keeping your spices in tip top condition.  For more info, have a chat with a local storage professional.

Stick Them Inside A Cabinet Door!

A simple yet effective way to store your spices is to stick them to the inside of a cabinet or pantry door.  How can you do that?  Attach a simple rack or alternatively, attach metal strips or Velcro to the inside of the door.  Place your spices inside the rack if you’ve gone the rack route.  If you’ve gone the metal strips route, use adhesive magnets on the containers so they’ll stick straight to the strips!  Alternatively, glue Velcro to the container and they’ll stick to the Velcro inside the door.

Keep Spices in the Freezer

If you’re fond of ground spices, the best place to actually keep those is in the freezer!  Simply place them in small airtight containers and put them somewhere easily accessible within the freezer.  Spices stored this way will keep for 6 months in top condition but they may last for as long as a year.

Drawers and Shelves are Ideal

Since you want to keep your spices away from light, humidity and heat, keeping them inside drawers or on pantry shelves are ideal.  If you’re worried about them falling over inside the drawer, use drawer inserts or organisers to keep them stable and to stop them taking up too much room.  Pantry shelves are perfect for keeping spices on, and this method allows you to keep your pretty spice racks or carousels.

What to Keep Spices In

When you buy your spices, chances are that they’ve come in a simple jar or in packets.  If they’re in jars, you don’t have to move them but you’ll want to move packeted spices into something more airtight.  All spices should be kept inside airtight spice jars or tins.  These can be bought from specialty kitchenware stores or from homewares stores.  For a cheap option, just use old jam jars and the like!

Of course, you need to remember to label your spices so you’re not using basil instead of marjoram and so on.  Attach stickers to the front of the container or simply drop in a piece of paper with the spice name on it.