Sofia’s Herbs & Spices Drawer
Introducing you to Sofia’s herbs and spices drawer, where she gets her supplies from and what you can recreate at home in your kitchen.
Sofia originally had the idea from a Tiktok she watched and became obsessed with a similar set up for us. She was so adamant that we made another set of drawers for our new kitchen.
How it works in a nutshell is that you have any kitchen drawer, add these cheap drawer inserts, and it raises your herbs and spices once sat in it. Then you can quickly look from above in your drawer, grab what you need and those messy herb cupboards are a thing of the past.
This is how our herbs and spices drawer looks:
You can of course mix and match depending on what your go-to herbs and spices are. We all have favourites and it’s easy to grow your herbs and spices over time depending on what you use the most.
Firstly, I want to show you Sofia’s amazing kit, so you know what you need and then we can dive into what herbs and spices we need the most that you should stock first.
Sofia’s Herbs & Spices Drawer Kit
The drawer inserts
These of course come first and what is great is if you have a narrow drawer, you can add one per row, then if you have a wide drawer, you can adapt it and place one over the other like an overlay. We found that because we had a large drawer we used 1.5 packs of them. Altogether after the seasonings have been added we can fit in 20 per row.
Second came the storage jars
Sofia also picked up some storage jars that perfectly fitted in the inserts. She also bought some large jars for our pantry shelving too. But if you have small supermarket style herbs with the plastic jars and the label around the side you can use those instead.
The labels for everything
Wow it truly amazes me how many different labels there are and the different things you can get labels for. Pretty much every herb and spice you could ever think of.
The blank labels
I am always buying ingredients from abroad. Bringing them home and then wanting to use them. When they don’t have their own label its nice to have the blank ones that you can label up yourself.
Can you believe that is all you need for the main kit, well minus the herbs that you plan to put inside of them.
Even better: The storage jars we mentioned above also came with a funnel for pouring the herbs into the jar, as its so easy to spill them and also comes with some extra blank labels.
I could also think of lots of other things in my kitchen that I can use these funnels for as I am so clumsy!
My Most Used Herbs & Spices
It’s funny how we all have our own little set of herbs and spices we use the most. Our big go-to that between them can do a lot of different cuisines.
When Sofia was sorting out the drawer for me, she designed one row of them that was sorted A-Z based on what I used the most. She didn’t let me see it until I was done and I realised that in the 10.5 years since she was born, she had spent so much time in the kitchen with me that she just knew….
She has also based this upon a top 20 list because for the width of our drawers we can do 20 jars wide.
My top 20 most cooked with herbs and spices are:
Coriander – both leaf (cilantro to those across the pond) and ground and some seeds are regulars when I am cooking dinner. They give such a lovely flavour from our carrot and ginger pressure cooker soup to when you are making a curry.
Paprika – I love paprika and have both smoked and sweet paprika. Both are lovely and add a lovely flavour to your cooking.
Rosemary & Thyme – If memory serves me correctly this was the name of a TV show once in the UK. And it does sound good when you say them together. Rosemary is brilliant on the roast potatoes (Sofia won’t let me make roasties without it) and thymes goes in a lot of delicious soups, stews and casseroles and it suits veg too.
Parsley – It must be M&S parsley because of how beautifully green it is. I love the colours it gives to your food and a little bit of parsley is a great addition to a recipe.
Basil & Oregano – This is another two piece that I often use across different recipes. I love them on tomatoes, any Italian or Greek food I am cooking, and oregano reminds me of a lot of the food we used to eat when we lived in Portugal.
Chives – These are up there with oregano, basil and parsley as part of the green family that people cook with a lot. I love them in some egg mayo or just to add some colour to some potatoes or veg.
Chinese 5 Spice – Chinese food just isn’t the same without some Chinese 5 spice. It makes the food taste so good and no noodles or Chinese sides are the same without it.
Cinnamon – The sweet flavour from my drawer. Dom actually hates cinnamon so when we bake and he wants some I have to leave it out! I love it on some air fryer fruit especially when I am dehydrating.
Cumin (ground and seeds), Curry Powder, Garlic Power & Ginger Powder – The seasonings of a curry! Just grab some coriander and some coconut milk and you have a quick base for a curry for your slow cooker. Or in a lot of Asian food you may opt for just the garlic and the ginger.
Mint – Minted peas, minted lamb, mint sauce the list goes on. I love to add some mint for some extra flavour and love to have a sniff of the jar as mint is amazing.
Mixed Herbs – Also known in the USA as Italian seasoning it’s a great mix of flavours for when you want to be lazy and not get loads of things out. Make your own by mixing basil, oregano, garlic powder, and thyme. You can also vary it depending on what you like.
And yes, I counted back through those to make sure it made twenty and it DID!
Of course, you don’t have to start on 20, just start small and build up your collection.
Love Sam xx
PS: Comment with what your most used herbs and spices are, tell me if you are a regular reader did you expect these ones featured.
