Ideas for making chicken and rice lunches more exciting?

rougenoire

I am trying to be super organised and have batches of chicken and ready cooked brown rice in the freezer ready to chuck in a box to be heated up at work ready for lunch but I need some ideas to flavour it and mix it up a little to stop it getting boring but without adding lots of calories and fat. So, please give me your suggestions for adding vegetables, sauces , flavours or all three.

For example today I added spinach and green beans with light soy sauce, bonito flakes and chilli powder. Tomorrow I have a tomato sauce with courgette and mushrooms and loads of herbs and garlic. There must be thousands of ways to make chicken and brown rice more interesting but I have the same ones over and over! What would you make?

Hilz789

try a little sweet chilly sauce to spice it up??
:happy:

jbruced

A culinary trip around the world using the various herb and spice combinations used in different cultures.

missADS1981

buy all the different flavors of Mrs Dash. I have tons and only use that when cooking.

may i ask why only brown rice. its boring i know but you can also get good carbs in with your dish like yams and quinoa. i prefer those. brown rice to me is so bland so i go for the other two more often. i love some yams!

socioseguro

Hi:

I always mix brown rice with quinoa.

Buy a package of already washed quinoa.
1/2 cup of dry quinoa
2 cups of water
1 tsp chicken bouillon or similar (I use organic "Better than bouillon". less sodium)
2 bay leaves
Pot at full heat until it boils. Then starts to decrease heat gradually until water disappears at low heat. Turn heat off.
Let it cool down for a few minutes, take off bay leaves and mix with brown rice cooked on a separate pot.

I like chicken Sichuan style. I like it spicy. Good luck

Cr01502

Add bacon and cheese.

fishgutzy

Hot Sauce. Everything is better with Hot Sauce. particularly home made. :bigsmile:

_SABOTEUR_

soy sauce

EmilyOfTheSun

hot sauce (you can easily find 0 calorie hot sauce)

jalapeno slices (I bought a HUGE jar of jalapeno slices from Sam's Club the other day. The label claims they're zero calories. While I find that hard to believe...it doesn't matter much because even if it's not 0 calories...when I've used raw jalapenos before, they were like 5 calories for a serving).

calculustiger

(1) A cross between http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/03/spanish-chicken-and-rice-5-ww-pts.html and http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/01/arroz-con-pollo-lightened-up.html
(2) http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/09/thai-fried-rice-575-pts.html
(3) http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/02/crock-pot-santa-fe-chicken-425-pts.html
(4) http://www.skinnytaste.com/2013/02/crock-pot-sesame-honey-chicken.html

If you don't actually want a recipe, you can just look at well-received, random, ethnic dishes, and use whatever spices they do to give your dish flare. Certain regions sometimes use specific spices frequently.

theCarlton

Have it do a little role playing. Sometimes the chicken pretends to be leftovers from the night before. Or Mongolian beef and broccoli, even though I can tell it's really chicken. It's still totally exciting. Ooh, also - hit up Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=chicken (click pic that interests you, then click it again to be taken to the recipe)

fancycatlady

Try adding salsa, 0% greek yogurt, guacamole and fresh ciIantro. I southwestern cuisine! You can also try stuffed peppers with the rice and chicken. They can be Italian or Mexican by adding some black beans, corn, onion, garlic, jalapano or chipotle in adobe sauce and chili powder etc

just_fur_luck

Eat it on a zip line. That should make it exciting.