How to Properly Store Spices

My husband is a professional chef; that has given me access to a WEALTH of cooking and other food-related tips and tricks...these are some of the "preferred" or "recommended" tips I've picked up recently while researching different ways to store our spices.

The "enemies" of spice are light, heat, moisture, and oxygen. So -- glass bottles out on the kitchen counter, while beautiful, aren't exactly the best way to do it! Likewise, sticking them on the side of the fridge exposes them to a cold temperature flux, which is also a no-no.

The preferred container for spices is supposedly metal, with no window. As you can see, these spice containers I bought are metal, but they do have that little window at the top. I tried to find ones without the window, but then they didn't have the shaker/pour top, which was important. (My husband's a big guy with big bear hands; I just had this visual in my head of him prying the entire cover completely off of a tin, and spices flying everywhere!) I covered this window by placing my round spice labels right on top. Problem solved!

Best place to store spices is in a drawer or cabinet, away from the stove, oven, dishwasher, or refrigerator where rising steam or heat can come into contact with them. Heat depreciates flavor; dampness causes caking and/or clumping in ground products. This will prolong the life and freshness of your spices, which makes a flavor difference when you actually use them.

I am putting our spices on the inside door of what is our current spice cabinet (it's a mess in there - I can never find what I'm looking for!!!) I plan to use magnetic paint so the tins will just stick to it without having to use magnets, but we'll see how well that goes...

BTW, for labels, you don't need to purchase anything! You can Google "spice labels - template" and quite a few will come up. Or you can even design your own using clip art or a photo that you happen to like. Some great examples are below.

You can find clipart similar to this - just search for "frame."

If you find something online you like, you can save one as a picture, then import it into PAINT and erase the spice name. Insert a text box and type whatever spice you want with the font you want.

Here's another simple one. For this, I would import into PAINT, then select a portion of the solid black and paste it over the existing name to make a clean template.

Another easy one to customize - you get the idea!