Smart Tips On How to Store Your Spices
Every week, we’re spotlighting a different food blogger who’s shaking up the blogosphere with tempting recipes and knockout photography. Below, Christopher Nordquist of Domestic Daddy offers an excellent tip on how to store spices.
When I picked a jar of smoked paprika out of the spice drawer in our New York apartment and noticed a sticker that read “best before 2/2007,” I realized I had, as they say, an opportunity for improvement. Our spice drawer was a messy jumble of mismatched jars and tins, most of which I had no recollection of buying, and almost none of which bore any expiration date. In addition, a shelf in a nearby cupboard was full of bagged spices, mostly of more recent vintages, but, again, with no proof of age. Recently, I decided to turn this sorry state of domestic affairs into a foul weather project.
For the containers, I took the advice of Deb Perelman of the excellent food blog Smitten Kitchen. She recommends the Libbey Vibe glass spice containers (one assumes in spite of their dorky name), and that’s all I needed to know. I placed an order for 24 of the 4.5-ounce containers on Amazon.com ($22 per dozen) and picked up a couple of the matching 12- and 27-ounce containers at the Container Store for larger spices such as cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. (Amazon has all sizes of the Vibe at much lower prices than the Container Store, especially if you take advantage of the Super Saver shipping program.)
For the spices, I headed to one of my favorite places on Earth, Kalustyans. This amazing New York City shop sells spices and rare ingredients such as chutneys and pickle relishes, and it also has an excellent online store at www.kalustyans.com. (Sometimes I go there just to cheer myself up.) The selection, quality, and prices are all better than jarred supermarket spices.
My trusty label maker allowed me to identify the bottles. (Clear labels are prettier, but more difficult for my middle-aged eyes to read.) To keep track of freshness, I stuck a label on the bottom of each jar (and on the bags of back stock) showing the month and year I bought the spice.
I think the rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t keep spices for more than a year, but that’s not realistic for me. There are many spices that I don’t use up that fast, and tossing them seems wasteful. More than two years, though, is probably too long, particularly for ground spices. To prolong their life, I just grind a bit at a time, keeping most of my stock in whole form.
More pantry stories:
Tasty sesame noodles straight from your pantry
Thai pantry staples that will last forever
Dried vs. fresh herbs: a comparison
How do you store your spices?
