Of all my emergency food, spices were one of the most challenging items to stockpile.
Not only do spices go bad quickly, but pantry pests love them, and they don’t make sense to package in bulk.
If you also love food with flavor, here’s what you need to know about how to store spices long-term.
Why Store Spices as Part of Prepping?
When prepping on a budget, your food stockpile probably consists of many dry staples like rice, oats, beans, and dried fruits and vegetables.
Read:
These foods by themselves are incredibly bland. Your emergency meals would be very dull without any spices to jazz them up.
Flavor might not matter when surviving the apocalypse, but most disasters are short-term. Eating meals you enjoy can do a lot to boost morale!
Even if you buy meals from top emergency food companies, you’ll still probably want to stockpile spices. Those meals aren’t exactly the most flavorful. Plus, spices can add nutrients like antioxidants to your food – nutrients often missing in most emergency meals.
Do Spices Go Bad?
Yes, spices can go bad. Unopened in their original packaging, most spices will start to go bad within one year. Dried herbs go bad within two years. Once opened, the spices will begin to lose their flavor fairly quickly.
What makes spices go bad?
The flavor of spices is held in their natural oils. These natural oils are very volatile and can break down very quickly.
If exposed to oxygen and heat, the spices will lose their flavor. The spices may still be safe to eat but won’t have as much flavor, which defeats the point of storing spices in the first place. Nutrients in spices will also degrade over time.
Pantry Pests Also Can Get Into Spices
Pantry pests like weevils and moths love to eat some spices. While it is generally safe to eat insects in your food, it can be gross (speaking from experience, weevils add a nasty crunch to your food!).
For more on this, read: how to kill bugs in rice before storing.
Is It Safe to Eat Expired Spices?
Yes, it is generally safe to eat expired spices. Because spices have low moisture content, bacteria, fungi, and other microbes can’t grow easily on them.
Many spices are also high in antioxidants which naturally kill microbes. Thus, it is highly unlikely that you would ever get food poisoning from eating expired spices. In fact, spices are often used to treat food poisoning or added to food to prevent food poisoning.
However, do note that spices can absorb moisture from the air. The spices might get wet enough to support bacteria or mold growth in humid climates. Heating spices to 167 degrees F kills most harmful pathogens.
How to Store Spices Long Term
If you want to store spices for longer than 12 months, keep them somewhere cool, dark, and dry and protect them from oxygen. The best way to do this is to repackage spices in airtight containers with oxygen absorbers.
1. Choose the Right Storage Container
Because oxygen causes spices to go bad quickly, you must store spices in airtight containers. There are only two good options for this:
- Mylar bags
- Mason jars with two-part metal lids
Both Mylar bags and mason jars are completely airtight when closed. They won’t let any air or moisture from the environment into the packaging.
By contrast, the lids on spice jars don’t create a very good seal. It will allow air and moisture from the air in, which can cause spoilage. For this reason, you should never store spices long-term in their original containers.
For more, read this guide to packaging food in Mylar bags.
Shelf Life of Spices in Mylar Bags
When stored in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and kept away from heat, spices should last anywhere from 2 to 10 years. Herbs like parsley and basil retain their flavor longer than volatile spices like cumin and red pepper flakes.
What about vacuum sealing?
Vacuum sealer bags aren’t airtight. Over time, they will allow air and moisture to leak in. So, they aren’t a good solution for long-term spice storage. Read more about vacuum seal vs. mylar bags here.
2. Use Oxygen Absorbers
When you put spices in an airtight container, there will still be oxygen already inside. This oxygen will cause the spices to go bad gradually.
In addition, there may be insect eggs in the spices (it sounds grosser than it is). These eggs can hatch, resulting in an infestation inside the container.
The solution? Oxygen absorbers.
Oxygen absorbers (OAs) are little packets of iron. They absorb oxygen from around them. They create a completely oxygen-free environment if put in an airtight container like a sealed Mylar bag.
Read: How to Use Oxygen Absorbers for Long-Term Food Storage
3. Keep Somewhere Cool and Dark
Even if kept in an oxygen-free environment, spices will degrade from heat and light. You must keep them somewhere cool and dark. Mylar bags don’t allow light through, but mason jars will. You can put them in a box or wrap them in bags to protect against light.
Should I keep spices in the freezer?
Freezing spices will keep them fresh indefinitely. However, freezing isn’t usually a good long-term storage solution. The spices might pick up smells from other items in your freezer. Also, if there were a long-term power outage, your spices would start to go bad.
I store some spices in the freezer – but not for long-term storage. These are spices that I frequently use, buy in bulk, and rotate through reasonably quickly.
4. Use Small Containers
Spices are only used in small amounts. They also go bad very quickly. Because of this, it doesn’t make sense to stockpile spices in bulk quantities. If a long-term emergency hit, your spices would go bad before you could use them up.
Instead, only stockpile a small amount of spices per container. You can use small Mylar bags or 2oz mason jars.
5. Store Mixes Instead of Individual Spices
For most people, it doesn’t make sense to stockpile individual spices. I sometimes use more than 12 or more spices in a single recipe. If I wanted to cook a few types of meals during an emergency, I would have to open up dozens of little bags of spices.
I would only need to open a few bags by packaging spice mixes instead. The rest would remain sealed and safe until needed.
6. Label Spice Containers
Make sure you label your spice mixes. Otherwise, you might not remember which spices are in the container.
To label spices:
- Use a permanent marker to write on the container
- Cover this with clear packaging tape. It will keep the writing from rubbing off.
7. Keep Spices Organized
If you are stockpiling a large amount of emergency food, it is easy for things to get chaotic. Imagine searching through a zillion packages of food to find the right spice mix – and possibly by flashlight!
I keep my spice mixes with the foods they will be used with. For example, I have some sealed bags of quinoa, freeze-dried veggies, and chickpeas. I also put a bag of Middle Easter spices to be used with them. My Mexican spices are next to my bags of rice and beans. And so forth.
You might prefer a different organizational method, like keeping all your little emergency spice containers together so you can pick and choose. What matters is you are staying organized.
Can I Store Spices in their Original Packages Long-Term?
If you don’t want to repackage spices, choose spices that come in metal pouches. These will keep fresh longer than spices in plastic containers. Jars of spices are also okay if you keep them away from light. You will still need to rotate through the spices within 1-2 years, or they will lose their flavor.
Which Spice Mixes to Stockpile?
Here are some ideas on which spice mixes to store long-term. Variety means your emergency food won’t get boring!
- Italian mix
- Enchilada mix
- Chinese 5 spice mix
- Za’atar
- Curry powder
- Everything bagel seasoning
- Cajun seasoning
- Berbere spice mix
- Garam masala
- Jerk spice mix
- Adobo spice
- Tandori spice mix
- Poultry spice
- Creole seasoning
- Pumpkin pie spice (makes emergency oatmeal taste so much better!)
What spices do you stockpile for emergencies? Let us know in the comments section below.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464615001127
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09637486.2016.1164671
https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2004.tb17853.x
https://ifst.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1992.tb01194.x
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319562X17300773
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0168160586900176
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/08/28/216550862/your-kitchen-spices-can-often-harbor-salmonella
Are medicine bottles ok to store spices in with oc’s inside
Most medicine bottles are not airtight, so oxygen absorbers won’t be able to do their job.
Can you put dried minced garlic and dried minced onions and other dried spices like chilis in Mylar bags with and oxygen absorber?
Yes, you definitely can. You just have to make sure they are VERY dry. This article has more info: https://www.primalsurvivor.net/dehydrated-food-shelf-life/
Good morning
Can I store
Curry powder
Cinnamon powder
With oxygen absorbers
Yes, definitely. But I keep mine in the freezer so the oils don’t break down.
Can you store granulated garlic and onion, or will they go rancid? What about dried Mixed Herbs, oregano, thyme, etc. I’m in Australia so it’s sometimes hard to work out info from American websites! Also, my family don’t eat canned beans or chilli.
Garlic and onion do have oil in them, but not so much that they go rancid quickly. Herbs (mixed or not) don’t have much oil at all, so won’t go rancid. These can all be stored in an airtight container with oxygen absorbers. Or store them in the freezer. They will be safe to eat for a long time and still have flavor. 🙂
Can I store brown sugar in Mylar bags? If so, do I use OA?
Yes, you can — but do NOT use OAs. Read: https://www.primalsurvivor.net/how-to-store-sugar-for-long-term-stockpiling/
It says 2 to 10 years. How do you know which spices are two years and which ones are 10? I want to store Taco seasoning and fajita seasoning long term. If I store them in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers will they last for 2 years or ten?
The more oil they have, the faster they go rancid. Cloves, for example, are very oily and are closer to the 2 year shelf life than 10. It also depends on whether they are ground up or whole. For example, whole cumin will last longer than ground cumin. And not to mention the many other factors (heat being the main one). Basically, try to rotate them within 2 years. After that, they might not have (good) flavor anymore.
Your information sets a wide range of expiration dates [“2-10 years”]. Could you please be more specific? Is it shorter for dried herbs and longer for powdered spices? Or the reverse? I’m packaging (most) everything in Mylar bags with O2 absorbers. I want to know what to write on the bags. Thank you.
There are too many variables to give a more precise date. Heat is the big one — it will make oils in spices go rancid and cause nutrients to degrade. Regardless, it’s more an issue of TASTE than safety — all spices should be safe to eat for 10 (or more!) years when packaged properly with OAs. But they just might not have any flavor or nutrition left, so it kind of defeats the purpose.
I am still looking for input on how the proper size/amount of “cc” oxygen absorbers to use per mylar bag for my spices. For example chives vs cumin? Would the cumin and other more “powdery” type of spice require more/higher “cc” of oxygen absorbers? Any additional info would be great, thanks.
I’d use the same recommendations used for beans. Beans have higher CC requirements than most other staples. The reason is that beans have a lot of air INSIDE of them. So do some whole spices. You won’t likely need this many CCs for most spices, but it is better to play it safe than sorry.
1/2 pint use 50CC OA
Pint use 100cc OA
Quart use 300cc OA
Gallon use 500cc OA
5 Galloons use 2500cc OA
This is what I think it wouldn’t hurt to go over, but it definitely will if you go under and your food is spoiled. So Ive been popping extras in because for me this is about survival at the end of the day and would hate to be in state of should of, could of, would of, type situation. If poop hits the ceiling fan because I was being cheap.
What about storing small amounts of spices individually in very small smell proof Mylar bags, then storing those smaller Mylar bags in one large Mylar bag with oxygen absorbers? Or would each smaller Mylar bag also need an OA?
Yes, each Mylar bag would need its own OA. If you seal the spices in a Mylar bag, the OA from the outter bag won’t be able to remove oxygen from the spice bag. Since spices oxidize and lose their flavor fairly quickly, you definitely want an OA in there!
Anybody ever try freeze drying spices and then mylar/OA?
I dehydrate my spices and then put them in Mylar with OA. Freeze drying should be even better since it is better at removing moisture evenly.
I have never seen 2 oz mason jars. They make 4 ounce mason jars, which is what I use with spices. Additionally, I add a 50cc Oxygen Absorber, then finish it off with a vacuum seal. I store these in a windowless room that stays around 70 to 80 degrees year round, regardless of weather.
I’ve been using my canning jar sealer attachment to my vacuum sealer with canning jars. Will see how well they do.
After reading this article I’m confused. I have all kinds of spices and herbs in 24 ounce hard plastic jars. I always put several oxygen absorbers in each jar. Most of the jars are around 5 years old but some of them are 8-10 years old. There’s no noticeable difference in their taste since I put them in there. They are stored in a dark cabinet. I change out the oxygen absorbers once a year. I don’t know why they have lasted so long. I think there must be a spice fairy in my house. Darn good thing or I could have killed someone by now!
They might be really good plastic containers, and thus don’t leak air or moisture through tiny holes (which is the case with cheap plastic). *But I’m assuming that you are keeping the jars closed? If you are regularly opening/using the spices, the oxygen absorbers are kind of pointless – oxygen will get into the jars each time you open them.