Spices are akin to food storage containers; they tend towards entropy. It’s easy to toss a bunch of jars and tins and packets into a cabinet, but you’ll rue the day when your stew is boiling and you needed to add that pinch of dried thyme five minutes ago (cue the frantic scrabbling amongst a jumble of spice bottles). A messy spice cabinet also makes it easier to keep spices that are past their prime. Luckily, there's a gadget that'll help you get your spices in order: the mighty spice rack. 

Spice racks are designed to optimize space and efficiency, and make it easy to identify and grab a jar without creating a cascade of tumbling bottles. I put 11 spice racks—ranging from $13 to $35—through a series of tests to help promote stress-free, organized cooking (and to make it easy to get rid of those old jars camping out in the back of your pantry). I evaluated countertop offerings as well as shelf and drawer inserts to find options for kitchens of every shape and size.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Drawer Spice Rack

Lynk Professional Expandable Spice Drawer Organizer

If you have the space, drawer spice racks offer great visibility and easy bottle access. The Lynk organizer also holds an impressive number of spices, and the expandable design fits snugly into a variety of drawers. 

The Best Countertop Spice Rack

The Container Store Acrylic 20-Bottle Spice Rack

This spice rack takes advantage of vertical space to display bottles, and if you stick to a labeling system, you’ll never have to shift through a jumble of spices again. I loved its clean, minimal design and the option to mount it to a wall or the back of a door. 

The Best Cabinet Spice Rack

The mDesign rack’s tiered shelves helped keep things organized and ensured the back row was visible. Each shelf is constructed of solid plastic that prevents bottles from wobbling or falling over.

Installation Test: I assembled and installed each spice rack, evaluating the material, instructions, and how easy it was to set up. 

Spice Filling Test: Once assembled, I filled each spice rack with bottled spices to verify the capacity.

Use and Durability Test: To check functionality, I opened and closed drawers or cabinets, placed and removed spices, and tested out any special features, checking to ensure that spices were easy to access and identify. This also tested the racks' durability.

What We Learned

Visibility Was Key

Imagine lining your spices up like bowling pins. In this arrangement, it would be easy to identify the front jar, but the pins in the front row would block the spices in the back. The best spice racks arrange spices so that all of the labels are visible. 

There are several different ways to achieve this. If you have the space, I found that in-drawer storage options offered the best visibility. Spice racks like the Lynk Professional Expandable Organizer and Marie Kondo Narrow In-Drawer Spice Organizer store jars on their side in a single row, making it easy to see each label.

I also liked the mDesign Plastic Shelf Expandable Spice Rack, which used tiered shelving—the same basic principle behind stadium seating. Spices on the back shelf are elevated, and the labels show over the front bottles.

Other models, like the Copco Non-Skid Turntable and YouCopia SpiceStack Adjustable Spice Rack Organizer, were less successful. The Copco uses a lazy Susan design to increase visibility, but this only allows access to jars on the outer edge—spices in the center were hidden from view. The YouCopia kept jars out of sight entirely on three drawer-like plastic shelves, making it difficult to pinpoint that jar of cumin you’re looking for.