Making Bland Food More Flavorful

pennygm72

Fresh fennel and dried fennel seeds are fantastic with fish, also agree totally with lemon/ citrus.
In our house we use smoked paprika, ground cumin, and chilli regularly, along with Moroccan rubs with harissa for grilled meats and fish and fresh ginger in a variety of soups

lalepepper

I'm a big fan of salt free Farmer's Dust. A small amount of oil or butter can also help liven things up.

Wtn_Gurl

hi great suggestions! tonight i made turkey chilli and i literally dumped in a couple handfuls of spices and used tomato paste, tomato sauce too. i had a sample - it was flavorful! so i took you all's suggestions i also am going to put a slice of jalapeno pepper jack cheese to melt on top. oh yeah it will be totally on my diet

CriQue312

McCormick Gourmet Spice Blends are amazing! There's a huge selection. You just have to shop around to find them.
Here's a link to the page on their company website to find out more.

https://mccormick.com/gourmet/spices-and-flavors#blends

Also there is a low sodium version of Old Bay out there for seafood lovers!
You should be able to find a link on the bottom of the McCormick page to Old Bay, might help you find that version (?)

Machka9

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

So I am eating low sodium, watching my sugars, and calories. Now, I cook vegetables, chicken veg soup, etc. and trying to infuse better flavor (like the way restaurants taste however, they prolly add in more salt and sugars). So, I made some crab soup made with low sodium canned tomatos, and it came out kinda bland. I used onions, garlic, for flavor, but it still tasted bland.

So what do you do to add more flavors into your food without using sugars and salt. I have some no-salt Mrs Dash but it does not really add flavor.

Add curry and chilli.

slowbubblecar

I have a lot of franks red hot. I put that *kitten* on everything. I know it has a lot of sodium, but I drink a lot of water to counter balance it and am not too worried about sodium myself. It saves me a lot of calories I would otherwise consume with other sauces.

CriQue312

CriQue312 wrote: »

McCormick Gourmet Spice Blends are amazing! There's a huge selection. You just have to shop around to find them.
Here's a link to the page on their company website to find out more.

https://mccormick.com/gourmet/spices-and-flavors#blends

Also there is a low sodium version of Old Bay out there for seafood lovers!
You should be able to find a link on the bottom of the McCormick page to Old Bay, might help you find that version (?)

Most don't have any sodium, a few do. They list that information under each flavors page link.

CriQue312

slowbubblecar wrote: »

I have a lot of franks red hot. I put that *kitten* on everything. I know it has a lot of sodium, but I drink a lot of water to counter balance it and am not too worried about sodium myself. It saves me a lot of calories I would otherwise consume with other sauces.

Health concerns anyone's doctor addresses are going to trump this, but if you do low carb or keto diets you need to be sure you replenish electrolytes. One of those is sodium!

I think magnesium might be another to reduce the chances of muscle cramps, but look this stuff up if it applies to your diet.

CriQue312

And I too am a Franks Addict... yummy on lotsa stuff like eggs, chicken, mixed w Salmon pouches, try it w Weber's Kickin Chicken spice blend if you're not sodium sensitive.

rheddmobile

First, there's no need to go to extremes with low sodium unless a doctor has instructed you to. To maximize the effect of a small amount, add salt when serving, not when cooking, so that it is not absorbed in the cooking process.

Make sure foods like soups and stews have a sour component. When people say food is bland, they often mean that it lacks the depth given by sourness. Lemon and lime juice, various kinds of vinegars, buttermilk, all of these add sourness.

Get to know your herbs and spices. Someone above suggested Indian grocery stores and this is great advice - their spices are much cheaper and stronger than American grocery store spices. I also use a lot of fresh ginger - ginger, garlic, and red pepper is a combination which works with all kinds of food. Someone mentioned fennel seed - a little fennel and just a touch of cinnamon is an interesting variation on tomato based sauces.

In the case of the bland crab soup, I'm not sure what I would have done - maybe sort of a Louisiana profile since you already had garlic and onion? Black pepper, red pepper, celery.

lucys1225

Penthesilea514 wrote: »

I LOVE Penzey's low salt seasoning mixes (and their regular ones!)- it adds a huge array of flavors to my meals. Krakow Nights, Arizona Dreaming, their currys, the pizza seasoning (seriously adds awesome flavor to frozen pizzas which we do from time to time), etc. Check them out at https://www.penzeys.com/

Agreed! I love Penzey's. I have a whole cabinet full of their blends.

Wtn_Gurl

I'm choosing to keep salt at about 1,000 mg a day, due to my trying not to retain water. but if I happen to go over some days, I am not going to fret. i'm going to get me to the ethnic market where they do sell all these kinds of spices and food items by the way, the crab soup is very good, and I just need to kick the flavor up a notch, I'm thinking tomato paste instead of just low sodium tomatos. like I did in my chilli last night totally made it awesome!

HeidiCooksSupper

lucys1225 wrote: »

Penthesilea514 wrote: »

I LOVE Penzey's low salt seasoning mixes (and their regular ones!)- it adds a huge array of flavors to my meals. Krakow Nights, Arizona Dreaming, their currys, the pizza seasoning (seriously adds awesome flavor to frozen pizzas which we do from time to time), etc. Check them out at https://www.penzeys.com/

Agreed! I love Penzey's. I have a whole cabinet full of their blends.

Yup! Just added Penzey's "FORWARD!" to a veggie mac'n'cheese last night. Yummy. "Pie Spice" on my morning bran cereal or yogurt.

Tacklewasher

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

I'm choosing to keep salt at about 1,000 mg a day, due to my trying not to retain water.

Is this under doctors instructions. Because it sounds pretty dangerous to me to limit to that level if not.

Wtn_Gurl

Tacklewasher wrote: »

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

I'm choosing to keep salt at about 1,000 mg a day, due to my trying not to retain water.

Is this under doctors instructions. Because it sounds pretty dangerous to me to limit to that level if not.

I did not know that,, I will check with him - thanks! it would be nice to have a little more salt on my food as salt adds flavor.

rankinsect

Tacklewasher wrote: »

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

I'm choosing to keep salt at about 1,000 mg a day, due to my trying not to retain water.

Is this under doctors instructions. Because it sounds pretty dangerous to me to limit to that level if not.

Agreed - particularly if you exercise heavily. You can lose anywhere from 300 to 6000 mg of sodium per hour during exercise, depending on the heat, your body weight, and the intensity of the exercise. One study found certain football players losing a staggering 30,000 mg over a 4.5 hour training session. That's more than an average weekly sodium intake.

It's also important to remember that high sodium is only really a risk factor for about 10% of the population. About 1 in 3 Americans are hypertensive, and about 1 in 3 of those are sensitive to sodium intake. If you are in that group, controlling sodium is very important, of course, but you should determine if you are first. Even if you do need to watch sodium, you need to balance the amount you consume with the amount you lose, because while high blood pressure puts strain on the circulatory system, low blood sodium makes your brain swell and can literally crush it to death against the inside of your skull.

Wtn_Gurl

rankinsect wrote: »

Tacklewasher wrote: »

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

I'm choosing to keep salt at about 1,000 mg a day, due to my trying not to retain water.

Is this under doctors instructions. Because it sounds pretty dangerous to me to limit to that level if not.

Agreed - particularly if you exercise heavily. You can lose anywhere from 300 to 6000 mg of sodium per hour during exercise, depending on the heat, your body weight, and the intensity of the exercise. One study found certain football players losing a staggering 30,000 mg over a 4.5 hour training session. That's more than an average weekly sodium intake.

It's also important to remember that high sodium is only really a risk factor for about 10% of the population. About 1 in 3 Americans are hypertensive, and about 1 in 3 of those are sensitive to sodium intake. If you are in that group, controlling sodium is very important, of course, but you should determine if you are first. Even if you do need to watch sodium, you need to balance the amount you consume with the amount you lose, because while high blood pressure puts strain on the circulatory system, low blood sodium makes your brain swell and can literally crush it to death against the inside of your skull.

Thanks! i'm not heavily exercising.. but i did peruse the internet for an idea, and it seems like about 1500 mg of sodium is ok per day. of course there are factors that determine that - age, health issues, etc. but it seems like 1500 is an average but could go to 2,000.

RodaRose

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

hi great suggestions! tonight i made turkey chilli and i literally dumped in a couple handfuls of spices and used tomato paste, tomato sauce too. i had a sample - it was flavorful! so i took you all's suggestions i also am going to put a slice of jalapeno pepper jack cheese to melt on top. oh yeah it will be totally on my diet

Perhaps add milk to make a creamy soup:
http://www.food.com/recipe/maryland-cream-of-crab-soup-26194#activity-feed

http://www.bumblebee.com/recipes/cream-of-crab-soup/

Wtn_Gurl

RodaRose wrote: »

Wtn_Gurl wrote: »

hi great suggestions! tonight i made turkey chilli and i literally dumped in a couple handfuls of spices and used tomato paste, tomato sauce too. i had a sample - it was flavorful! so i took you all's suggestions i also am going to put a slice of jalapeno pepper jack cheese to melt on top. oh yeah it will be totally on my diet

Perhaps add milk to make a creamy soup:
http://www.food.com/recipe/maryland-cream-of-crab-soup-26194#activity-feed

http://www.bumblebee.com/recipes/cream-of-crab-soup/

I was in Michigan a few weeks ago and I had some creamy crab soup. it was pureed more than I liked. I did have the tomato based crab soup in Baltimore many many years ago and sadly, I coudnt find a restaurant closer to me in Chicago that makes it. I like it tomato-based and chunky. it was delish! thank you for the recipe.. crab soup is awesome!