Flavoring food

My boyfriend and I are both trying to eat more healthy, so we bought chicken and brown rice.  For me this is a very tasteless meal.  My boyfriend ate dinner after me and added Frank's hot sauce to it and mixed everything together and really enjoyed it.  However I'm very sensitive to spicy food and there's no way I could use the hot sauce.  Does anyone have any other sauces or spices that I could add that would still be healthy, like the hot sauce, that would give flavor to this type of meal?

best thing i just discovered: lemon juice! put some on your chicken or salads, it tastes great

If you season chicken before you cook it, it tastes better.... so if you brush with olive oil and sprinkle on some dried oregano, a little salt and a good twist of freshly ground black pepper before cooking it wouldn't have been so bland.  Brown rice you can cook in stock rather than water for extra flavour.  And then how about jazzing it all up with a simple italian fresh tomato sauce..... 

Simple fry off a little finely chopped onion and some crushed garlic in a little olive oil, add some good quality canned, chopped tomatoes in their juice with a little oregano, a pinch of sugar, salt and some black pepper.  Then cook, uncovered, over a low heat until the tomatoes have cooked down and the sauce has reduced and thickened.  You can add sliced mushrooms for another variation.   It's a very low calorie, low fat way to add flavour and moisture to quite a lot of foods without being spicy. 

Good luck with your cooking.

Thanks guys.  Both sound like good ideas.  I'll see about seasoning the chicken and trying the lemon juice for something quicker tonight and I like the idea of cooking the brown rice in stock instead of water.

I never thought about sauce with rice, but I'm sure that's great.  I'll have to give that a try when I have the patience to make a sauce.

Marinate the chicken using ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar or sherry ginger and spring onions, marinade the breast of chickens in that for 4 hours or night before, grill under a low to medium heat then once cooked slice chicken and pop in a pitta with chinease leaf and salad greans and when it comes to cooking rice, cook it in a good stock, then once cooked sprinkle over a little sesame oil and soy sauce, and add and mix in cooked peas or a tin of sweetcorn. Very oriental and not at all boring or high in calories.

Lots of love sue aka astralhippy

Ps If any of you know me as the mad veggie and want to know how I know this tastes good as before becoming veggie this is the sort of food we ate and now we cook it all the same with Quorn chicken fillets, just as deliscious and very low in fat, but you have to defrost fillets first and slash the fillets so the marinade penatrates further, you could also do this with the chicked. Just make scores diagonally across avoiding going right through breast.

Anyone wants recipies just drop us an email we do indian food chinease food and tai food and of course good old traditional english grub and they are all easy to adapt to meat if you prefer.

i love the premade seasonings that come in shakers. there are tons of different flavors- some have a lot of sodium but there are some that are salt-free. fresh herbs can also really make a difference.

• Olive oil
• Toasted sesame oil (very good Asian flavor)
• Sauteed' onions and bell peppers
• Seasoned vinegars
• Salsa (mild or spicy)
• Salad dressings (they make low-fat ones too)
• Stir-fry and soy sauces
• Mrs. Dash salt-free seasoning blends (I love the Italian one)
• Chili sauce
• Tomato paste
• Marinara sauce
• Chicken or vegetable stock
• Fresh herbs (or dried)
• Citrus juices and rinds
• Pesto or olive tampenade

If you like pepper, Mrs Dash is just wonderful. The 'regular' one is NOT spicy or hot, it seasons your food up nicely. I toss the chicken into the pan and add a generous amount of Mrs Dash and some water and cook it up. Just don't get the 'southwestern' variety - it's so blindingly hot that I had to toss the bottle in the trash.