I've been working on improving hubby's and my lunches lately and have become a bit of a convert to cous cous and quinoa as they're nice and filling and also very versatile. My tastes are pretty basic so I don't need anything fancy to entice me to eat it, but he's quite picky and thinks that both these things are bland (even when I use herbs or whatever to pep them up). I've tried mixing them with things like crab meat, feta cheese, toasted seeds, roasted veg (not all at the same time of course!) but wondered what other flavour combinations people enjoy. Please share your ideas with me!

I love couscous/bulgar wheat/quinoa with salads! I usually throw in some chopped tomatoes, cucumber, raisins and some ground cumin. Or I use Rosemary.

If he's finding quinoa bland, try dry roasting it in a pan before you cook it, it brings out a more nutty flavour!

Other things that go quite well are raw carrot and courgette grated in, or even some beansprouts!

Thanks PrincessPikachu - I would never have thought to dry roast it, which is silly really as I do always dry roast nuts and seeds when we have them in stir fries (duh!). When you have it with salad, do you tend to have a 50/50 split of grain to salad, or do you have more of one than the other?

I tend to probs do about 60/40 when doing it in salad, cos I tend to just chuck it in a Tupperware! Although with quinoa I probs do it 40/60 cos I'm not too keen on the texture

I also mix cous cous with salad ingredients. I dice the following and mix them with the cous cous: cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes and broccoli. I often add either soy sauce or hot sauce to my cous cous to liven it up. It is a little bit too bland all by itself.