The Well Organized Spice Drawer: Featuring the Best 8 oz Spice Jars

Are you looking for a convenient way to organize your spices, but are frustrated with the current containers on the market?

Do you want your jars to be pretty without sacrificing function?

Or are you just plain overwhelmed with all of the options out there?

Maybe you’ve thought about organizing your spices a lot but the task itself seems too daunting, so you keep putting it off.

Well friends, sadly, this was me for many many years. But, not anymore…

Now, I have a spice drawer that is both functional and Pinterest worthy!

I’ve been using it multiple times daily for 6 months and it is AMAZING! It not only stays organized with ease, but it’s unbelievably convenient. I’ve actually been cooking more because of it!

Gone are the days when I get frustrated trying to find the right spice, only to discover, 10 minutes later, that the bottle is gone, but never made it on to the last shopping list!

No more, will I battle with buying a new spice bottle only to realize I still had plenty, but just couldn’t find it!

Alright… alright… sorry to go full blown infomercial on you there. But in all seriousness y’all, I cannot stress enough what a game changer this project will be for you. It is SO WORTH IT….trust me. It has honestly changed the way I feel when I’m cooking and I’m so excited to share it with you. I’ve also included my round spice jar labels below for free. Now you too can have gorgeous spice jars that are the envy of the neighborhood.

Disclosure: this post may contain affiliate links. meaning, I will earn a commission if you go through them and chose to make a purchase. please note, that I only include links to products that I believe will be helpful to you, not because of the COMMISSION I receive. rest assured that There will be no additional cost incurred to you if you chose to make a purchase through one of my links.

Step 1: Picking the best jars for spices

First things first, what exactly do you want in a spice jar?

The best containers for spices should meet the following basic criteria:

1. The jar needs to hold at least 4 oz comfortably. 6oz – 8oz spice jars are ideal as they give you plenty of wiggle room. There’s no sense in having a spice jar that won’t hold the full contents of the spice container you bought at the store. No one wants to store an extra box of 1/3rd full spice jars for their next refill…no thank you.
2. The neck of the jar must be wide enough for you to measure directly from the jar. We all know what a pain it is when the tablespoon measure doesn’t fit. So instead, you find yourself attempting to pour chili powder into the measuring spoon. Props to you, if that has ever gone well at your house. At mine, I can tell you, this has always resulted in an epic fail.
3. It needs to be air tight. Honestly, who has time to refill their spices every few months because the container doesn’t keep them fresh? I know I certainly don’t.
4. Labels must be easy to read. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of hanging tags on jars as if my kitchen drawer is full of beautiful party favors. But, when I go looking for a spice in the midst of cooking, I need to be able to find it and fast.
5. It needs to look good. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen and I use my spices regularly…I want to enjoy both finding and using them and if they don’t look nice, I’m simply not going to.

Well friends, I can tell you, I scoured the internet trying to find the very best containers for spices. I looked up all sorts of things like “the best way to store spices”, “spice jar ideas”, “spice containers bulk”, “best spice storage ideas” and loads more. But, none of the options I found met the above criteria.

Well, I just wasn’t willing to give up quite that easily…

I didn’t want to have to choose between them looking great and being easy to use. No sir, I wanted it all.

So, I started to consider some non traditional spice storage solutions.

What I came up with worked absolutely perfect!

Now I use Mason Jars for spices

Specifically the:

• 4 oz mason jar
• 8 oz mason jar (standard height)
• 8 oz wide mouth mason jar
• 16oz mason jar

These four jars met all of my needs.

I primarily chose the 8 oz glass spice jars for things I use weekly. I also used some 4 oz spice jars for things I use less frequently, the occasional 16 oz spice jar for things I use constantly, and a few stacked sets of wide mouth mason jars for constant-use pairs (like salt and pepper). My reasoning for using all four sizes, is that I want to keep all of my spices in one place (even the less used spices and the bulk spices) and space is at a premium in my daily use spice drawer.

If, however, it is important to you to have all of your spices perfectly identical, I totally get it. Had my space allowed, I would be right there with you. If this is the case, then I highly suggest you use the 8 oz spice jar exclusively.

This 8 oz glass spice jar meets every one of the above criteria and I can tell you there has never been one that is easier to use.

Most commercial spice containers will fill the 8oz mason jar about 1/2- 2/3rds full leaving you plenty of space. Also, the 8 oz mason jar has straight walls leaving the neck of the mason jar the same width as the jar itself. Not only does this mean that ANY measuring spoon will fit just fine, but it also means that you don’t have to get out a funnel ever time you refill. You just simply unscrew the top and pour it in.

And as far as being air tight goes, mason jars are far superior to almost any of the commercial spice jar storage options out there. Now this leaves our final two criteria: does it look good and does it have clear and easy to read labels? Yes and yes, and after using these labels personally for months now, I can tell you they are both super convenient and look so pretty, you’ll smile when you use them. You’ll find my printable spice jar labels below.

Step 2: Deciding on your Storage Plan

Now that you’re sure you want to use mason jars for your spice storage solutions, its time to decide how many of each jar you need.

This can be the most intimidating part, but don’t worry, I’ve broken it down into simple steps, so you can tackle it a few minutes at a time.

Just remember how worth it its going to be in the end. Ah, where beautiful meets well organized, the Monica Geller inside of you will be so happy. Hang in there, you can do this.

1. Pull out all of your spices, yes all of them.
2. Organize them in alphabetical order. Yes, I know this step seems needlessly OCD, but I promise you it’s worth it. By spending a minute organizing them, you will catch all of the duplicates you own. Yes, I am assuming you are like me and will find upwards of 3…or more like 7 (but who’s counting) duplicates among your stash. If you complete this step and find none, you truly are a rockstar!
3. Now that you have them organized, its time to count how many spice jars you will need. I found that I needed 45!
4. Now you must consider two things: First, where is your kitchen’s best storage for spices? And second, how much space are you willing to dedicate to spice storage? Do you want to keep your spices in the pantry or in a cabinet? Or, do you want a kitchen spice drawer? If you’re going to be using a cabinet or pantry for your spices storage, feel free to skip ahead to Steps 3 and 4 below.
   • I chose to organize spices in a drawer. Since our cabinets are small in this house; I did not have any extra cabinet space to keep my spices in. And as far as pantry storage goes….that’s not really an option here. Our pantry is actually down 6 stairs; one of the quirks to living in an older house with all its charm, means that somethings are not exactly convenient. Since, I was definitely not going to open baby gates and go down stairs every time I needed a spice, I decided to dedicate a deep drawer for organizing spices. Now that I was working with a single drawer to fit all of my spice containers; I needed to make every square inch count. Which brings us to step 5:
5. Measure where you want to keep your spices and use this to guide which mason jar storage containers you choose. My drawer was 16″ wide and 19.25″ deep. I also measured that I have 7.5″ of clearance in height (this will be helpful later).

The jar measurements are as follows:

• 4 oz glass jars :2 3/4″ in diameter and 2 1/4″ tall
• 8 oz glass jars : 2 3/4″ in diameter and 4″ tall
• 8 oz wide mouth jars : 3 1/2″ in diameter and 2 9/16″ tall
• 16 oz wide mouth jars : 3 1/2″ in diameter and 4 3/4″ tall

This section is just for those of you who want to use drawer storage for spices

If you’re going to be using a cabinet or pantry for your spices storage, feel free to skip ahead to step 3 below.

But, if you are like me and chose a drawer, you have a few more steps. Sorry friends….but again, remember that glorious end goal…I promise it will be so worth it and you’ll be full of pride for having made it happen.

1. First, you must consider the tall the drawer is. If you intend to use the 8oz jar you need to have 4″ of clearance minimum. Which, unfortunately, means that most standard height kitchen drawers will not have sufficient clearance. My standard height drawers measured just shy of the 4″ requirement at 3.75″.
   • Note, if you only have standard height drawers and you’re set on organizing spices in a drawer, don’t be discouraged. You can still use the 4 oz glass spice jars as they are only 2.25″ in height! And trust me, the 4 oz spice jar alone will serve you far better than other commercial options. It still fits all your measuring spoons. The lid is still airtight. The beautiful and functional labels still look great on it. Honestly, it really only has one downside: capacity. With it only holding 4 ounces, you really must make sure it is all the way empty before refilling it. Even then, the quantity of some full commercial containers will not quite fit.
     
2. Next, you need to determine how many jars you can fit in your drawer. My deep drawer had more than enough clearance for either the 8 ounce or the 16 ounce jar. It was even deep enough to allow me to stack two of the 4 oz glass jar and even two of the 8 oz wide and short mason jars. When the jars are stacked they actually measure a little bit higher than the standard 8 oz jar, so I always remember which ones are stacked at quick glance.
   • Note: stacking will only work if you find a logical pair. You don’t want to bury a spice and not be able to remember whats on top of it. I used a stacked pair of 4 oz jars for things like “whole cloves” and “ground cloves” or “sesame seeds” and “poppy seeds” and a stacked pair of 8 oz jars for things like “salt” and “pepper”.

My 16X19.25″ drawer is able to fit 5 side to side and 7 front to back of the 8 oz jars. Meaning I could comfortably fit 35 spices in identical jars.

Now I told you earlier, I was hoping to get 45 spices into this drawer and I needed a few bulk containers, for things I use constantly. For that reason, I really wanted to use several different sizes of jars. In the end, I came up with the following arrangement for my drawer:

I’ve included this workable drawer template (Spice Organizer DIY) below, so you too can figure out your best way to configure your spices drawer. Just download and open it up and you will see full instructions for use. Once you put in your drawer dimensions, you can move individual jars or rows or columns of jars around until you find your drawer’s best way to organize spices.

Step 3: Gather Your Supplies

Order your jars

Once you’ve settled on your jar sizes, quantities, and contents its time to order your supplies. We use a lot of mason jars around this house, we even used them for baby bottles for our girls… but more on that another day. So honestly, I had most of mine already. But, because I use them often, I also know the best places to buy them.

You can find them locally at Walmart, Target, and most grocery stores. Buying them locally will definitely save you a few dollars per dozen, but I can’t tell you how many times I have waited to buy jars until my next shopping trip, only to find they were out of stock in the store anyways. For that reason, I highly suggest you consider ordering them from Amazon this time around. That way all of your supplies will arrive within a few short days and you can check this task off your To Do List once a for all.

Here are links to buy them on *Amazon, if you do chose to order them this time around. You’ll note that its usually much cheaper to buy them in sets of 12. But if you hate having left overs of things, they do sell them in smaller quantities.

*I linked to specific quantities for each size so you can get a close to exactly what you need as possible. Note: I listed the prices at the time this was published but the prices may have changed since. Feel free to click on one and look around Amazon a little bit for a cheaper deal if it has been a while since this post first went live in March of 2021.

Order your labels

These are the ones I used:

• for your 4 oz and 8 oz jars you’ll want to get *They’re my favorite labels for this task and also happen to be the least expensive by far. The printable labels pdf below is designed to work with these specifically.

  Yes, you will find yourself with a great deal of left overs, even at that bargain of a price. I will be posting soon with plenty of ideas for what to do with left over matte white sticker labels. So, don’t get rid of your extras just yet.

  It’s also worth noting that if you would like to experiment with making your labels waterproof, you have two options available:

  1. One way to waterproof your labels is to apply a *Did you end up going with Avery Waterproof labels? Let me know how it went in the comments below, I’m eager to hear about it!

  • Note, that I believe the printable label pdf below will still print well on the Avery labels but I cannot fully guarantee it. Please let me know in the comments below if you try these labels and find that my printable labels pdf doesn’t line up; as I’d like to correct this if people are interested.

  I decided not to go the waterproof route and even with constant use over many months, I haven’t looked back. At the time I made mine, I figured that if i need to replace a lid here and there in the future, its easy enough to do. And, honestly I haven’t had to do it yet. But, to each their own.

  Step 4: Make Your Own Jar Labels

  This is truly my favorite part! And again, I’ve made it simple for you.

  Click here to join my mailing list and I will email you my “labels for spice jars 2 inch diameter pdf”, my “labels for spice jars 2.5 inch diameter pdf”, as well as my “drawer organizer template” as my way of saying thank you!

  send me my labels

  Step 5: Transfer your Spices and Label your New Jars

  

  

  This part is SO satisfying and actually goes really fast!

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  Step 6: Fill your Spice Drawer and Stand Back to Admire the Beauty

  Below is actually one of my dear friends’ empty spice drawers. She recently refurbished this gorgeous childhood dresser of her husbands into her new kitchen island and decided to make the top two drawers into convenient spice storage. Such a great idea, and the final result is absolutely breathtaking!

  

  • 

  • 

  Simply stunning!

  

  And convenient!

  

  Alright y’all, I know we have been on quite a journey; but I have faith in you, so I know you made it to the end. I truly can’t wait to see all of your well organized spices, so please post them below so I can brag on you! Also, post what other spice jar labels you would like to see for your collection. I am currently working on a master list of spices that already contains over 140 options.

  until next time,

  Allison

  PS: If you like the font used on these labels you should check out my related post: Farmhouse Bread Basket from a Thrift Store Find.

  DISCLOSURE: THIS POST CONTAINED AFFILIATE LINKS (*). MEANING, I WILL EARN A COMMISSION IF YOU GO THROUGH THEM AND CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE. PLEASE NOTE, THAT I ONLY INCLUDE LINKS TO PRODUCTS that I believe WILL BE HELPFUL TO YOU AND NOT BECAUSE OF THE COMMISSION I RECEIVE. REST ASSURED THAT THERE WILL BE NO ADDITIONAL COST INCURRED TO YOU IF YOU CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH ONE OF MY LINKS.

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