I've been saving empty glass food jars and their lids for a few years now. What I love is that since I buy the same foods over and over, I have a good-sized collection of several sizes of jars, but enough of each type to have some uniform food storage.
I've wanted to transition much of my food storage to glass containers. And using repurposed glass food jars seems like the first step in this process.
I have a whole bunch of queso/salsa jars from my daughters. (They love queso and buy it for themselves often.) The jars are small, round, have a large opening, and hold about 2 cups. I grow all of the oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil that we use in a year. In addition, I buy all of our spices from bulk bins. Till now, I've stored our herbs and spices in an oddball collection of plastic containers. Repurposed queso jars look to be a good size for herbs and spices. The labels on these jars peel off cleanly. My plan is to store all of our herbs and spices in these jars.
I'll need to label the jars, so I don't confuse ground cloves with allspice or oregano with marjoram. The easiest "nice" label uses chalkboard paint.
The jars above are on Mother Earth News, from the article, How to Label Glass Jars. My only cost would be chalkboard paint. Hobby Lobby sells a small bottle (enough for my labels) for $1.89.
Another jar type that I've been collecting is from our instant coffee. I've been buying Great Value Colombian instant coffee and saving the glass jars it comes in. The coffee is good and I love the glass jar.
The jars are tall, squarish, and are easy to grab and pour from. The only drawback is the top opening is not wide enough to fit a measuring scoop larger than a 1/4 cup measure. But I do like these jars and have saved about 5 so far. They hold about 3 1/2 cups by volume. I'm thinking pourable ingredients would work best with the small opening.
These might be good baking "extras" jars, such as flaxseed meal, cocoa powder, chia seeds, coconut flakes, and chocolate chips (when I buy from WinCo's bulk bins or buy the super large plastic bag from Walmart). They might also be a good storage container for the grains and pulses that I buy in smaller amounts from the bulk bins, such as quinoa, steel cut oats, millet, wild rice, red lentils, yellow split peas, etc.
Since my baking ingredients and grains/pulses are rather obvious to identify, I don't think I'd need a label for these jars.
My last collection of jars are 32-oz pickle jars, again a purchase of my daughters. Go figure -- I make pickles from our own cucumbers, but still they want to buy more. I have 6 of these jars, so far (who knows when my daughters will get another pickle craving and buy more).
Like the queso jars, the pickle jar labels come off cleanly. They have a decent sized opening, so scoop-able (1/3 to 1/2 cup max scoop) ingredients as well as pourable will work with these.
32 ounces is about the right sized container for small pasta shapes for my household, like rotini, macaroni, and small shells, and for some of the grains we eat but not in large amounts, such as cornmeal, grits, and barley, all bought from bulk bins. The biggest issue with repurposing pickle jars and their lids is the odor. I've had good luck with airing the jars and lids in direct sunlight for the day. I've also read that soaking the jars and lids for 24 hours in a solution of 1 teaspoon of baking soda for every half-cup of warm water will deodorize pickle jars and their lids.
The only type of label that I'll need on these jars for the above listed foods is cooking instructions. for example how long to cook the ingredient and/or ratio grain to water. Again, I like the chalkboard paint label as they can be changed when the jar is refilled with a different ingredient.
Am I the only one who saves empty glass food jars? Who, here, repurposes their "empties" for pantry storage? In your experiences, what sizes work for which ingredients?
Yes, I am from a long line of jar savers. Two or more of my children do too. You've given me more inspiration. Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteHi Judy,
DeleteLOL. I guess I'm sorry to inspire you?
Don't you wish you could peek inside everyone else's pantries to see their thrifty organization techniques? I can just imagine yours with your nice collection of glass jars.
I am a jar saver but end up not being able to use them all (downsizing has its negatives) so I end up throwing them away which is sad. They took our recycling center away several years ago so now I have to drive a fair distance to another one which isn't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteAlice
Hi Alice,
DeleteAt least you've been able to use some of your glass jars.
A couple of ideas for getting rid of glass jars, but only if it bothers you to throw them into the garbage:
Will local thrift stores accept any glass jars in your area? I regularly see specific food jars at our local Goodwill (Bonne Maman preserve jars mostly). Sometimes preschools will accept some glass jars to use for arts and crafts. Free pile on the curb on a sunny weekend day has been a great way for us to get rid of all sorts of things. But all of these ideas require extra work on your part. So it's very understandable if you don't have the time or energy to do any of this.
That's such a shame they closed your nearby recycling center. If they want folks to recycle items, they need to make it convenient.
Have a good day, Alice.
Indeed, I save my jars and use for storage. I also like using the salsa jars for putting onions in the fridge, if I only use half of one. If you were to look in there now, I have three, one for a half of a red onion, one for yellow and one for white. :0) I have bought used 1 gallon pickle jars at the every Sunday flea market here for $1.00 each and use them for all of my different flours, sugars, etc... as well as for water glassing my eggs in the springtime when my hens overproduce and I have too many to use/sell. :0) Gayle
ReplyDeleteHi Gayle,
DeleteGreat idea for keeping onions that have been cut into. They're clear so you can find it easily and being glass, odor is easily washed away. We've used clear plastic containers for onion halves and they do absorb odors and flavors, not a great thing when you're wanting to sue the same container later to store something like leftover oatmeal.
I'm so envious of your 1 gallon pickle jars. I would love to have those for flour and sugar containers. The Ball 1 gallon jars are about $20 in my area. I'll keep my eyes open for second hand gallon jars.
Thanks for the tips, Gayle!
Lili, saw your comment about the 1 gallon jars. It may still be more than you'd want to pay, but if you have an Azure Standard drop in your area, I got mine from them. I've had mine a few years now, but I looked just now and they are currently $18.77 for a box of 4 of them, and 4 lids are $3.19.
DeleteI am also a jar saver, but I never use as many as I save and end up recycling some occasionally. I don't buy anything in bulk, so I don't have as much need to use them for storage as you do. However, I have used cat food boxes to organize my pantry. They are strong and uniform and hold like items. It's easy to pull them out if needed. And if I wanted or ever got around to it, it would be easy to cover the boxes to look more attractive.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteGreat idea to use cat food boxes to organize your pantry. As you said, you can pull them out easily, sort of like a drawer, I'm guessing. I've cut down a couple of plastic 2.5 gallon water dispensers to use as makeshift drawers on the top shelf of a cabinet to hold baking odds and ends. I can just barely reach that shelf. But I can pull out one of these containers and get what I need easily.
I like the idea to cover the boxes. It reminds me of my mother's contact-paper covered cylindrical oatmeal cartons. She used them in her section of their closet to store various things (one had a hair piece in it -- from the 1960s). Seeing her covered oatmeal cartons on her shelf is one of those oddball things I miss.
Have a great day, Live and Learn.
I use jars to store all pantry products. I have an assortment of half gallon mason jars and similar sized pickle jars on my counter with flour, baking mix etc. I buy bulk spices from an Amish bulk food store and use small jars for them. They then get transfered into my spice jars that I collected from Mccormick. That is a story. I got the spice rack for a wedding gift 29 years ago and most of the jars ended up with broken lids, I got a small set for Christmas one year and started collecting more on clearance. At one point I had 4 bottles of chives. I removed labels and eventually replaced them with some I got online. I still have that spice rack.
ReplyDeleteI have a similar sized jar collection of queso and salsa my adults brought home. I use them for small items.
Hi friend,
DeleteI would love to peek inside your pantry to see how you've used glass jars to store everything! Once we get a couple more projects completed around the house, it's my dream to have shelves built into the pantry. And then I'll have a stable place to keep all glass jars. Right now we have a portable metal shelving unit in the pantry.
What a lovely story of your spice rack's evolution. And so nice that you still have the spice rack from a wedding gift.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
We have saved glass jars for other purposes in the past, but mostly don't right now. Thankfully, we also don't have a whole lot coming in or I'd feel pretty guilty about throwing them away (they have done away with glass recycling in our area, sadly). The ones we do get are usually from pickles or from a marina sauce or pizza sauce that I purchase. In the past, since I make homemade dog food for our two dogs for one meal of the day, I had canned up a large batch of that to have some shelf stable and ready to go. The original lids will reseal (this is not recommended by any canning agency) and did so very well for me, and I felt comfortable testing this on dog food. However, I mostly just freeze the dog food so haven't been saving them recently.
ReplyDelete