How to spice up any meal literally

Fitness2023-03-01

Let’s learn how to use simple spices to make your meals awesome!

Maybe you’re just getting well-appointed cooking in the kitchen.

Or maybe you’ve been eating the same yellow and broccoli for weeks and it’s time to spice it up.

Either way, you’re in the right place.

Not only do we program workouts in Nerd Fitness Coaching, but we moreover discuss low-calorie recipes that are succulent (we use them ourselves!). Today, we’ll share our tips for making any meal delicious, using only a handful of worldwide spices.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Why your supplies doesn’t have to be smooth and boring
The 6 weightier spice combinations for tasty food
How to add spices to a meal (7 simple recipes)
5 tips for using spices while cooking
Getting started spicing up your supplies (Next steps)

Grab your spouse and let’s do this!

Our Rebel Chef, Noel, will take it from here:

Why Your Supplies Doesn’t Have to Be Smooth and Boring

Remember those diagrams of the tongue that you learned well-nigh in school?

They told you the tongue tasted variegated flavors depending on the section. The when tastes bitter, the front tastes sweet, and the sides taste salty and sour.

1. Stormy 2. Sour 3. Salt 4. Sweet

Most of us now know this is wrong.

Your whole tongue tastes all flavors, and it’s not just your tongue! The roof of our mouth and your nose help out too! In fact, there are more than just the four flavors we learned well-nigh in school.

There is flipside lie that has been circulating in the fitness world for years. It’s a lie that says healthy supplies is wearisome and bland.

It drives me crazy.

And in this nerd’s opinion, it’s one of the most rabble-rousing lies told well-nigh getting healthy.

We know nutrition is 80% of the battle when it comes to achieving our health and fitness goals. And when we tell ourselves eating healthy supplies is boring, flavorless, and downright gross, we put ourselves on the fast track to failure! Just like exercise can and should be fun, cooking meat and veggies should be delicious.

Today we’re going over some vital skills that will indulge you to see maximal goody for minimal effort.

How? Simple flavors.

Here are 6 foolproof spice combinations to help you level up your cooking skills, explore the world with your tongue, and (hopefully) get you out of your supplies rut!

6 Spice Combinations for Tasty Food

Tons of rebels looking to level up their cooking have asked well-nigh re-creating their favorite dishes from virtually the world. I’ve got good news for you! It’s not as difficult as most people think.

Regional dishes taste the way they do considering they are made from the spices and ingredients local to that community. Your siblings didn’t need Super Processed Stir Fry Sauce to make dinner. They used whole foods to create succulent dishes, and we’re going to do the same.

Here are 6 simplified spice combinations that you can use to take your healthy meals from smooth to bold. Each is measured for a pound of food:

#1) Mexican:

Chili powder: 1 Tbsp (15ml)
Lime (Juice from 1 lime)

#2) Greek:

Oregano: 1 Tbsp (15ml)
Olive Oil: 2 tbsp (30ml)
Lemon juice: 2 tbsp (30ml)

#3) Italian:

Oregano: ½ Tbsp (7ml)
Garlic: 3 Cloves (½ tsp or 2.5ml powdered)
Basil: ½ tbsp (7ml)
Tomatoes: 1 diced can

#4) Indian:

Cumin: ½ Tsp (2.5ml)
Curry: 1 tbsp (15ml)
Coriander: ½ tsp (2.5ml)

#5&6) Chinese/Japanese (this makes a marinade or stir-fry sauce):

Ginger: ¼ tsp (1ml)
Tamari: ¼ cup (59ml), can moreover use coconut aminos or soy sauce
Rice Vinegar: 2 Tbsp (30ml)
Garlic: 3 cloves (½ tsp/2.5ml powdered)
Dash Red Pepper Flakes
Sugar (Honey): 1 tbsp (15ml)

Bonus flavors!

#7) Thai (this makes a marinade or stir-fry sauce):

Coconut milk: 1/2 cup (118ml)
Tamari: 1/4 cup (59ml) (coconut aminos could moreover be used)
Fish Sauce: 2 tbsp (30ml)
Green or Red Curry Paste: 1 Tbsp (15ml)
Cilantro: Handful of fresh chopped

For the well-constructed set, add these to your shopping list (herbs and spices are dried):

2 limes
2 lemons
Can or jar of diced tomatoes
Coconut aminos or soy sauce
Rice vinegar or world cider vinegar
Chili Powder
Oregano
Basil
Parsley
Red Pepper Flake
Garlic Powder (or fresh seedling of garlic, your choice)
Curry powder
Cumin
Coriander
Ginger powder

If you go to the store and buy these 15 items, you’ll be set to make a wide variety of dishes from all over the world.

These spice combinations can be used for chicken, fish, eggs, beef, or pork; roasted, sauteed, steamed, or microwaved veggies; stir-fries, and more!

For a very minimal monetary investment and one trip to the grocery store, you can have a variegated dish from virtually the world every day of the week!

How to Add Spices to a Meal (7 Simple Recipes)

Okay, you’ve got your spices.

Now how do you put them to work?

Glad you asked!

We’re going to take one of your favorite recipes and put your new spices to the test! Grab one of our many recipes and take one of the whilom spice combos and put them together.

My suggestion is that you omit the suggested spices from the original recipe posts and replace them with the ingredient measurements above. Remember, the whilom suggestions are by the pound, so if you’re using two pounds of yellow or veggies, double the spices!

Here are just a few examples of how you can these spices for scrutinizingly any dish:

Roasted veggies – Anyone up for some Mexican chili lime or Indian curry-spiced veggies?
Chicken Stir Fry – Try the Asian spices out to level up this classic!
Shepherd’s Pie – Indian curry shepherd’s pie sounds like an unexpected and delightful combination.
7 Ingredient Fish and Veggies – Eliminate the spices from the original recipe and try an Asian twist!
Lettuce Wrapped Burgers – Make some Italian spiced burgers, and top with fresh mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil!
Scrambled Eggs and Veggies – Try a variegated spice philharmonic on plain old scrambled eggs each morning this week to see how the flavors differ!
Easiest Yellow Ever – Toss the yellow in some Greek spices, lemon, and olive oil instead of the spices prescribed in the original recipe.

After a while, you’ll learn which spices you like in a dish and which ones you can live without.

Maybe you like cinnamon in your curry or maybe you can’t stand the taste of ginger. That’s totally cool! Your supplies is YOURS!

Soon you’ll be worldly-wise to spice your dishes without having to measure them every time. Be sure to use your nose and mouth to smell and taste what you’re making as you go! (Unless it’s raw meat. Never taste raw meat.)

5 Tips for Using Spices While Cooking

So you’re heading to the store, or you once have your spices. Awesome! Here are some tips to make shopping and cooking a little bit easier.

1. Does ownership individual spices and mixing them sound intimidating? The spice companies make this easy for us. Trammels out the spice walkway in your grocery store. Lots of companies make pre-mixed spices for regional dishes:

Italian Seasoning
Greek Seasoning
Herbs de Provence
Taco/Fajita seasoning
Curry powder
Chinese 5-spice powder

To experiment with these, buy a couple and try a new one every time you melt something. Put it on something vital like eggs or baked yellow so you can uncork to taste the difference between spices from variegated areas of the world.

2. Salt and pepper don’t do the same job.

Salt makes your supplies taste MORE like what it is. It enhances the flavors of the supplies that are once there. If you over-season with salt, of undertow it will make your supplies taste salty, but that’s not salt’s function in the culinary world.

If you’re feeling venturesome and have a little uneaten cash, buy some fancy looking sea salt. There’s Hawaiian pink sea salt, fleur de sel, woody sea salt, fine sea salt. There’s plane weird stuff like truffle salt, grey sea salt, and woebegone pyramid salt!

The weightier translating for pepper is to buy whole peppercorns and a pepper grinder. They plane sell removable ones with peppercorns once in them at the grocery store. You don’t have to get fancy. This is what I have. Fresh ground pepper makes all the difference in the world. If you like pepper on your food, this is the way to go!

Sometimes the most simple combination of woody sea salt and coarsely croaky woebegone pepper is all I use to season a steak, and it’s freaking delicious. Never unbelieve simplicity.

3. Buy a pre-stocked spice rack. I might get some flack for this tip from seasoned (pun intended!) cooks. But when you’re first starting out, instead of ownership all your spices individually, sometimes it’s nice just to have it all washed-up for you. Spice racks are relatively cheap, they requite you a lot of spices and herbs that you may not have thought well-nigh picking up at the store, but you’ll be glad you have it when a recipe calls for paprika and voila! You once have it!

Admittedly, spices and herbs that come in a pre-stocked spice rack from a department store may be older and therefore less flavorful, but it’s largest than having no spices at all!

4. Get witting with acid. By acid, I midpoint vinegars and citrus juices. You’ll be amazed at how much subtracting a little bit of vinegar to a plate of sauteed veggies or your paleo spaghetti sauce makes it pop.

Acids patina the flavors in your supplies and help minimize some of the stormy flavors in unrepealable foods (like visionless leafy untried veggies). An wounding can moreover help you bring lanugo the heat if you widow too much red pepper flake to a dish.

5. Fry the spices first. This is tabbed “blooming” your spices. When your oil is heated in your pan, add your spices to the oil first and mix them virtually for 3-5 seconds, then add your veggies or meat or whatever you’re cooking in that oil. This is a quick and easy way to deepen and intensify the savor of your spices.

Getting Started Spicing up Your Supplies (Next Steps)

We’ve all heard people say eating healthy supplies is wearisome and bland. If you ask me, the people who are telling you this are doing it wrong.

When we gravity ourselves to eat the same foods over and over (like plain baked yellow and steamed veggies with minimal seasoning), it can deplete our willpower bar if we require increasingly flavors and variety.

Companies diamond Frankenfoods to make us require the sugars and chemicals they’ve created, so they can profit off of us indefinitely.

How can we fight versus that?

By mastering the art of using spices and sauces!

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring. Armed with these vital concepts and combinations you can defeat cravings and unquestionably enjoy and squint forward to your healthy meals!

Just roll up your sleeves and get going!

If you want some increasingly help, Nerd Fitness is here for you.

We have three options on how to protract with us. Pick the option that weightier aligns with your goals:

Option #1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching program: a coaching program for rented people to help them make largest supplies choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

All the coaches from our videos today are part of the program, and they’re ready to help you level up your kitchen skills, prophecy or no apocalypse.

You can schedule a self-ruling undeniability with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you:

Option #2) If you want an word-for-word tabulation for how to eat largest and get in shape, trammels out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise increasingly frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally). We plane have quite a few “How to Cook” adventures.

Try your self-ruling trial right here:

Option #3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Sign up in the box unelevated to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out at home” guides, the Nerd Fitness Nutrition Cheat Sheet, and much more!